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Chuck Todd's comparison ("A Kerry Landslide?" May) of the 2004 election to the election of 1980 is flawed. Does Todd remember the economic conditions in 1980? The United States was suffering from double-digit inflation, high unemployment, and a 15.5 percent prime interest rate. In response, President Carter went on national TV to blame the citizenry for being in a malaise. We had a weak president who had accomplished almost nothing despite a Congress controlled by huge majorities of his own party, and who had allowed Americans to be held hostage in Iran for more than a year.

Compare the above to the current conditions. The United States has enjoyed the highest GDP growth over the last three quarters than any period since 1984. Today's unemployment rate of 5.7 percent is low by any historical standard, and the outlook looks good for more job creation throughout the rest of the year. There have already been 500,000 jobs created in the first quarter. Interest Pates are at a 50-year low, which has allowed tens of millions of Americans to refinance their home loans and save billions of dollars in interest. Inflation is nil, which has served to increase the purchasing power of Americans. Last, we have a strong chief executive who, after 9/11, is taking the war to America's enemies.

If there is any landslide this November, it will be a massive victory for President Bush.

Garrett Mahoney

Oakland, Calif.

Todd's article is running on two flawed assumptions: 1) that this election will follow the pattern of past elections, and 2) that John Kerry is comparable to Reagan while Bush is to Carter. This misguided theory is actually reversed. Kerry is tied right now because he is Carter, and Bush is holding his own right now amid more violence because he has the resolve of Reagan.

The problem is that the story ignores other important facts about modern presidential electoral history. The author's examples of the five defeated incumbent presidents fails to note the special circumstances in the four Republican losses that do not apply in the case of George W. Bush.

In the case of Taft and George H.W. Bush, the election was decided by powerful third party candidates (Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Perot) who unquestionably split the GOP vote and elected the Democrat. Ford was weakened by being the only president in U.S. history who had never run on a national ticket and who had lost popularity when he pardoned his predecessor who had resigned in disgrace. As for Hoover, well, there was the Great Depression.

The key historical point is that Democrats almost never get even 50 percent of the national vote whereas Republican candidates have done so often. Among Democrats, only FDR, LBJ, and Carter (barely) have received over 50 percent of the popular vote since 1900. In fact, it has reached the point where Democrats are only elected president if there is a third party splitting the GOP vote or if there is national drama or catastrophe like Watergate or the Great Depression. This year it seems plausible that the third party candidate will hurt Democrats, to the extent he has any impact at all.

Stephen Sulecki

via email

Chuck Todd replies: I believe that there are more signs pointing to a Kerry landslide than a Bush landslide. But as I argued at the end of the piece, the second most likely result is a Bush landslide. It appears we all do agree that the least likely result for this election is a repeat of 2000.

As for the point that today's economy is not really that bad, remember that perceptions trump statistics in elections, and there's no denying the fact that the public's perception of the economy (whether a media creation or not) is that it's struggling. At present, people believe that the new jobs aren't good jobs, and that the cost of living is up.

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