Managing Expectations

There is a lot to be said for meeting expectations in politics. The Bush teams spends an inordinate amount of time before big events making sure the bar is on the ground so that Bush clears it by a mile, even if he trips over it. It was the key to his success in the debates with Gore.

With Kerry in the lead in a number of polls, and with a number of pundits calling it his race to loose, I can only guess that this is exactly where the Bush campaign wants to be. There is even the whispers of Democrats getting their hopes up, only to be crushed again.

But the expectations game can be tricky to play. Eventually people may think that you are sandbagging or that you are being honest about how bad you suck. So if the reports about Oregon are true, and 60,000 people showed up for a Kerry rally, Karl Rove may have just lost the expectations game.