There IS a natural tendency to throw up our hands and say 'this is nuts. People are voting against their own self-interest. Bush fooled them well.' But I think we have to remember that we, the people take the responsibility for our leaders. Especially in a democracy.
On one hand, it's tempting to think, that people simply judge person who is perceived to be the most likable, or the one that we'd want to have a beer with, or to baby-sit our kids, to BE the best suited to lead us. Basically we want the guy in charge to be the one who is the most like US. Following that logic, all any election becomes, is a sales job. Here's the candidate, eating a sandwhich, hugging kids, chopping wood, etc. And Republicans do it as well as anybody.
Then you start to think that people must have no memory. Or curiosity. For how can it be said that 'Kerry just has not explained his position very well.' or 'I'm waiting for Kerry to lay out his plans.' or 'Kerry is a flip-flopper.' Where are Bush's plans? In fact, the level to which it appears that nobody remembers Bush's lies and flip-flops makes one think that there's must be something wrong with the water. There are plenty of excuses to be made: media sucks at doing its job, Supreme Court is eveil, or even that people are simply over-worked and don't have time or energy to pay attention to their own political self-interests(also known as 'people are fucking morons' argument/excuse).
But what makes me really nervous is if there's something about George W. Bush that appeals to (apparently) a lot of people. What if people know Bush for who he is AND like him for it? What if he is the candidate that IS most like the everyman/likely voter?
Yes, it is easy to blame the media, but they have their excuses, like: 'it's not our job to make the case for democrats.' Or, 'we have to give equal time to both sides,' etc. Regardless, putting blame on media only takes it off of somebody else. And who is that? Why it's the public. Us. I guess we deserve to get what we want. If we feel that we know everything we NEED to know and we like the way dubya conducts his (and our) business by going around in a socipathic manner and kicking ass round the world, then he's the president for us. And the world will be worse for it. I guess, I'm just gonna have to get a bumper sticker that says 'Don't blame me - I vote Democrat' and hope that there are more of us then them when it comes down to voting time.