What It All Means
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 4, 2004; 9:17 AM
Now the geniuses come out of the woodwork.
After weeks in which we all tried to divine the significance of how non-Cuban Hispanics in Florida and married suburban mothers in Ohio were leaning, everyone--reporters, anchors, pundits, analysts, bloggers and lots of Joe Citizens--will instantly become a geopolitical expert, explaining why President Bush's reelection was inevitable. People who couldn't tell Ken Mehlman from Mark Mellman will be holding forth on the cosmic meaning of a victory that, with the shift of 70,000 votes in Ohio, could have gone to John Kerry.
How did Bush pull it out? How could Kerry have blown it, given the mess in Iraq? Should the Democrats have talked more about moral issues, picked a southerner, smacked France around, undergone a lobotomy? What does a second Bush term mean for the future of America, and the world? Can he get anything done? Will Colin bolt? Will Condi stay? Who will replace Daschle? Will yesterday's conciliatory talk fade before the next episode of "Crossfire"?
All this will be a bit overstated, especially the Dems' garment-rending, given that Kerry (who showed more emotion in his concession speech than he had all year) came pretty close. And there's not much reason to expect a George Bush who won the popular vote to suddenly zig toward the middle, though he might make a gesture by naming another Democrat to his Cabinet.
What no one wants to say, at the risk of spoiling the fun, is that, historically speaking, second-term presidencies are usually a snooze. Domestically, at least, presidents tend to accomplish their central goals in the first four years. Reagan got tax reform through in '86 and Clinton got a balanced-budget agreement in '97, but the passions of both presidencies were at their peak the first time around (I'm delicately leaving out Iran-contra and Monica, both second-term scandals).
The New York Times says Bush is a uniter--in part of the country:
"It was not a landslide, or a re-alignment, or even a seismic shock. But it was decisive, and it is impossible to read President Bush's re-election with larger Republican majorities in both houses of Congress as anything other than the clearest confirmation yet that this is a center-right country - divided yes, but with an undisputed majority united behind his leadership.
"Surveys of voters leaving the polls found that a majority believed the national economy was not so good, that tax cuts had done nothing to help it and that the war in Iraq had jeopardized national security. But fully one-fifth of voters said they cared most about "moral values" - as many as cared about terrorism and the economy - and 8 in 10 of them chose Mr. Bush.
"In other words, while Mr. Bush remains a polarizing figure on both coasts and in big cities, he has proved himself a galvanizing one in the broad geographic and political center of the country. He increased his share of the vote among women, Hispanics, older voters and even city dwellers significantly from 2000, made slight gains among Catholics and Jews and turned what was then a 500,000 popular vote defeat into a 3.6 million popular vote victory on Tuesday."
The Los Angeles Times faults Kerry's style:
"Sen. John F. Kerry had nearly all the ingredients to mount a successful challenge to President Bush: a tepid economy, an unpopular war plagued by setbacks, and a fiercely motivated Democratic base. But in the end, the Massachusetts senator was missing one key element, political analysts and party strategists agree: a boldly rendered portrayal of himself and his vision for the country.
"Counseled by aides who believed that Bush would be done in by his unpopularity and who advised the Democrat to run an upbeat campaign of reassurance, Kerry failed to fend off the Republicans' relentless assault on his character."
There's a moral lesson here, says the Chicago Tribune:
"President Bush built his winning coalition by focusing on the importance of moral issues, the surprising electoral potency of rural America and just enough security-minded voters who thought Sen. John Kerry too great a risk.
"The combination was muscular enough that it overwhelmed deep dismay over the war in Iraq and the direction of the economy. Indeed, some voters most adversely affected by job losses actually helped pave Bush's road to another four years in the White House.
"In his victory speech Wednesday, Bush made a nod to Democrats about the need to heal after a bitter, contentious campaign. But in reality, he doesn't need them. He has expanded Republican majorities in Congress and is in a position to put an imprint on the federal judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, that could last for generations. In many respects, the moralists finally have their majority."
The Boston Globe sees red:
"George W. Bush's victory marks the political ascendancy of ''red-state" America that backed him strongly four years ago but then served as veritable bulwark against some of the strongest political winds to confront an incumbent seeking reelection.
"Bush won almost exactly the same combination of states as in his disputed 2000 victory, but most of them gained population and electoral clout in the intervening years, and, on Tuesday, rewarded his program of tax cuts and military aggressiveness with higher margins than four years ago."
Bush knew how to swing for the fences, says the Philadelphia Inquirer:
"President Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry for three fundamental reasons:
"He had a more resonant message.
"He was a more effective candidate.
"His team was better at getting out the vote.
"The Democrats, as is their wont, will spend their winter of discontent wondering what went wrong and playing the blame game. And there will be plenty to spread around. Kerry and his strategists will take much of the party heat for failing to knock off a president saddled with an unpopular war and a fitful economy.
"But a baseball analogy is relevant here: When fans of a losing team rebuke their pitcher for throwing a home-run ball, they often forget to credit the hitter who timed the pitch and knocked it out. And candidate Bush outplayed his opponent in all facets of the game.
"Start with the message. Bush was a man of few words, and Kerry was a man of too many. Voters tend to recall a terse message, endlessly repeated. They don't tend to recall a menagerie of messages, some of them contradictory, delivered with an excess of verbiage."
The New York Post is already looking ahead--and the future just happens to involve two New Yorkers:
"John Kerry's loss puts Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton atop the heap of Democrats ready to run for president in 2008 -- with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani her most likely GOP opponent, observers say."
Those observers--they always seem to know what to say.
The Dems should just move left--or is it right?
'"Twice in four years, the Democrats seemed inches from the front door of the White House, only to be turned away. Now what?" asks the Wall Street Journal.
"John Kerry's defeat has Democrats grappling with whether the party must make fundamental changes in philosophy to recapture the White House. Already, influential party insiders are mobilizing a debate that's likely to center on a few difficult questions:
"Should the Democrats seek national success by moving to the left, as many party faithful demand? Or should they shift rightward, which is where the election suggests the country is? And will their leader be a liberal, such as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean or Sen. Hillary Clinton, or the more centrist Sen. John Edwards -- or some fresh face from Congress or the ranks of Democratic governors?"
American Prospect's Harold Meyerson worries about the Incredible Shrinking Democrats:
"What's most dispiriting about Tuesday night's loss is that the Democrats did a lot of things right in this year's campaign. They nominated the strongest candidate in their primary field. They waged the smartest, best funded, and most effective ground campaign in their history. They were more unified than they've been since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 run against Barry Goldwater. And they got their clock cleaned.
"The results bear an almost spooky resemblance to those of 2000 -- as if the Iraqi War had never happened, as if George W. Bush wasn't the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch, as if American had actually maintained its place in the family of nations. Instead, on Tuesday, we simply retook the cultural census of 2000, with the result that George W. Bush's one Northeastern state of that year (New Hampshire) moved into Kerry's column and, possibly, that Al Gore's two weakest 2000 states (New Mexico and Iowa) moved into Bush's. Only, the red states were redder this time than before.
"The Democrats' America looks increasingly like a discontinuous ghetto -- the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, the industrial and upper Midwest, minus (it seems) Ohio. These states are home to the interesting, and promising, demographic changes in the U.S. They are the focus of much Latino immigration, and it's to these states that college-educated young professionals tend to move. Unfortunately, though these developments may make blue states bluer but they also make red states redder."
Former Clintonite Sid Blumenthal is not exactly preaching national unity in Salon:
"In the aftermath, Democrats will form their ritual circular firing squad of recriminations. But, finally, the loss was not due to their candidate's personality, the flaws of this or that advisor or the party's platform. The Democrats surprised themselves at their ability to raise tens of millions of dollars, inspire hundreds of thousands of activists, spawn extensive new organizations, attract icons of popular culture and present themselves as unified around a centrist position. Expectations were not dashed. Turnout vastly increased among African-Americans and Hispanics. More than 60 percent of the newly registered voters went for John Kerry. Those concerned about the economy voted overwhelmingly for him; so did those citing the war in Iraq as an issue. But the surge of the Democrats was more than matched.
"Using the White House as a machine of centripetal force, Rove spread fear and fused its elements. Fear of the besieging terrorist, appearing in Bush campaign TV ads as the shifty eyes of a swarthy man or a pack of wolves, was joined with fear of the besieging queer. Bush's announcement that he favored a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was underscored by referendums against it in 11 states, including Ohio -- all of which won.
"While Kerry ran on the mainstream American traditions of international cooperation and domestic investment, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for 'the right God.' During the closing weeks of the campaign, Bush and Cheney ridiculed internationalism, falsifying Kerry's statement about a 'global test.' They disdained Kerry's internationalism as effeminate, unpatriotic, a character flaw and elitist."
The New Republic's Ryan Lizza blogs from Kerry's farewell:
"I just got back from Faneuil Hall. It was a bit like a wake. Lots of staffers and family members in tears. It was one of those moments as a journalist where you feel icky thrusting a microphone into someone's face and asking them to spill. What is it about Democrats that their finest moments are their concession speeches? Gore's speech in 2000 was the best of his public life. Kerry's concession, gracious and concise, was better than a thousand of his stump speeches. He really is a good closer.
"Meaningless anecdote: The woman behind the counter at Kilbert and Forbes, the cookie shop at Quincy Market that Kerry once owned, is a Bush supporter. 'I wanted Bush to win, even though my husband and I work at the Kerry store,' she told me.
"Edwards: His speech sounded like the kickoff to his 2008 presidential campaign. It was odd that he hardly mentioned Kerry.
"Bush: I listened to Bush's speech in a cab on the way to my hotel. The president won reelection by relentlessly attacking Kerry and by emphasizing terrorism and culture war issues. So what is his mandate, according to his victory speech? Tax reform and privatizing Social Security."
Slate's Chris Suellentrop sees Kerry as the reincarnation of Dukakis:
"My take on the election: Vision without details beats details without vision. President Bush put forward a powerful and compelling philosophy of what the government should do at home and abroad: Expand liberty. You can disagree with Bush's implementation of that vision, but objecting to it as a matter of principle isn't a political winner. John Kerry, on the other hand, campaigned as a technocrat, a man who would be better at 'managing' the war and the economy. But for voters faced with a mediocre economy rather than a miserable one, and with a difficult war that's hopefully not a disastrous one, that message -- packaged as 'change' -- wasn't compelling enough to persuade them to vote for Kerry. . . .
"Rove's gamble that he could find more Bush supporters from among nonvoting social conservatives than from the small number of undecideds in the usual voting public worked exactly as designed. The question for Democrats is whether Rove's formula will turn out to be a one-time trick tied to Bush's personal popularity and the emotional bond the nation formed with him after the trauma of 9/11, or whether the Democratic Party has been relegated to permanent, if competitive, minority status.
"Are the Democrats once again a regional party, the new Eisenhower Republicans of the Northeast? For seven consecutive presidential elections, the Democratic candidate has failed to garner 50 percent of the vote. Not since Jimmy Carter in 1976 has a Democrat won a majority, and even Watergate could get Carter only 50.1 percent."
Andrew Sullivan feels that he lost in more ways than one:
"I've been trying to think of what to say about what appears to be the enormous success the Republicans had in using gay couples' rights to gain critical votes in key states. In eight more states now, gay couples have no relationship rights at all. Their legal ability to visit a spouse in hospital, to pass on property, to have legal protections for their children has been gutted. If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers. I'm not surprised by this. When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses. But it is deeply, deeply dispiriting nonetheless.
"A lot of gay people are devastated this morning, and terrified. We have seen, and not for the first time, how using fear of a minority can be so effective a tool in building a political movement. The single most important issue for Republican voters, according to exit polls, was not the war on terror or Iraq or the economy. It was 'moral values.' Karl Rove understood the American psyche better than I did. By demonizing gay couples, the Republicans were able to bring in whole swathes of new anti-gay believers into their party. With new senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, two of the most anti-gay politicians in America, we can only brace ourselves for what is now coming."
At Dan Kennedy's Media Log, the proprietor is struggling to move on:
"Anti-Bush blogger Jeff Jarvis has gotten quite a bit of attention with his 'post-election peace pledge.'. . . .
"I promise to. . . . Support the President, even if I didn't vote for him. . . . Criticize the President, even if I did vote for him. . . . Uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media while pushing both to be better. . . . Unite as a nation, putting country over party, even as we work together to make America better.
"Will Media Log take The Pledge? In a limited kind of way, yes, sort of. Obviously Bush now has legitimacy that he had lacked up to this point. Nearly four years into his presidency, he has finally won an election for president. We do have to respect that.
"But I'll tell you one thing that's really bothering me. In keeping with The Pledge, I want to make it clear that I'm sure this wasn't deliberate on Bush's part, and that he agonizes over the war he started just like any other human being would. Still, I can't help but think one of the reasons he won was that voters were understandably reluctant to reject an incumbent president during wartime. And this war was so unnecessary that you could argue he created the disaster that made his election possible.
"One thing I'm not going to do is start praising the wisdom of the electorate and bowing to its judgment. The outcome of this election is bad news for anyone who cares about a more just, equitable, peaceful, and diverse society. It's bad news for gays and lesbians, poor people, scared single women who need an abortion, soldiers, you name it. It's good news if you make more than $200,000 a year.
"But, unlike four years ago, Bush has earned the right to be president for the next four years."
The aforementioned Jeff Jarvis adds:
"If you continue to treat him like the devil in a gray suit, you will only drive him to his fringe and drive his supporters toward their fringe and you will lose any hope of winning in four years. You will continue to divide America and give the other side license to do the same. So retract fangs and claws and empty the venom." |
