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Originally Posted by The Reaper
That could be true, if he is alive.
I wonder how many voted for President Bush after OBL backed Kerry?
I dso not think that he got the outcome he wanted, but could he have made a difference in getting the POTUS re-elected?
Does an attack on the US, threats, or violent rhetoric by terrorists favor the Dems chances, or the Repubs?
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The polls showed that Bush got a bump after the Bin Laden video came out, but I've never seen any electoral analysis call it decisive.
Its a bit of a stretch to say UBL backed Kerry. He did bash Bush pretty vociferously (including on the "my pet goat" Michael Moore line), but he must have considered that might have the reverse effect of helping Bush, so who can say what he was actually trying to do. I think he was probably just trying to sow dissension on all sides. In anycase what he said in addressing "the American people" was neither candidate can protect you, only by total withdrawal from Muslim affairs can you achieve security.
Its hard to say who he would have preferred win in 2004. Its true that Kerry wanted out of Iraq which would have given UBL a major victory but Kerry was also promising to step up operations in AF/PK which UBL might have viewed as a threat (if he put any credence in it). In any case he knew Kerry's election wouldn't have resulted in a full US withdrawal from Islamic lands. I think UBL likes having Bush as President for a couple reasons. Bush because of his straight ahead demeanor (for better and worse) is easier to paint as a zealous "Crusader" which reinforce's UBL's self/public image as a Muslim savoir and helps rally the Muslim world to AQ's cause. Plus Bush has been such a divisive figure in Europe (partly through his own doing, partly through the Europeans' own ridiculousness) that it benefits an AQ divide-and-conquer strategy. Honestly, I think UBL probably viewed the 2004 election as a win-win scenario.
Jihadists generally operate under the assumption that the longer the war goes, the better off they are (regardless of how many individual battles they lose) because they are fighting the "good fight" and so their victory is inevitable. So in some ways I think they view Bush as a guy who plays into their hands by keeping after them. You can hear this in the contemptuous way Zawahiri taunts Bush (like inviting him for a drink at the Iraqi Parliament cafeteria after the bombing)...in some ways, they want him to keep coming because they think thats how they're going to break us.
I think the jihadi strategic blindspot is for the adaptability of the American character. They don't realize that we're not the type of people who just keep blindly moving forward (like the Russians), we're going to find new ideas and better solutions as fast as we can. I think Bush's perseverance in Iraq may actually end up carrying the day by buying time for that quality to come out...so they may have thought they wanted Bush, but they may have been wrong.
As for the domestic side of it...I'm not sure which side, if any, is helped by the perception of threat. People still think of Democrats as soft on national security, but after Iraq alot of them think of Republicans as incompetent. It'll probably come down to a judgement of the individual candidate.