Liberal Pols Out of Touch?

[bobbcat]

Here are 3 articles which point to the notion that the country's culturally conservative values as reflected in the electorate's pattern of voting is going to bolster the GOP and undermine the Democratic party. The Dems had better change their approach if they are going to have any hope at all of seriously competing in the arena of politics.

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[pandybat]

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Bush has his new term; what does America get?

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Since George W. Bush considered losing the popular vote in 2000 to be a mandate, he may consider a 3.5-million-vote victory in 2004 to be a landslide. This clean victory, though, does give him a chance to do better than he did after his controversial victory four years ago.

Despite what White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said, the president did not score a "convincing" win in the Electoral College. Forget Ohio, where John Kerry could have won the presidency. A shift of 2 percent in Iowa and 4 percent in Missouri would have produced the reverse of 2000 — Mr. Bush winning the popular vote but losing 270-268 in the Electoral College. For an incumbent, wartime president, Mr. Bush had a narrow escape. He sold himself better than he has sold his record.

As a Wall Street Journal poll noted this week, Americans do remain divided on some issues, but they agree on others, such as the need to deal with nuclear proliferation and to seek more international help in fighting terrorism. Unfortunately, the campaign left the nation frustrated. Even after months of speeches, no consensus has emerged on how to tame the growing violence in Iraq, how to control health-care costs, how to deal with immigration or how to reduce the deficit. Mr. Bush is responsible for all of the first problem and much of the last, and he asked voters to trust that he would respond.

Yet it appears that the issue on which this close election turned in key parts of the country was "moral values." Based on exit interviews, 75 percent of voters who describe themselves as born-again Christians or evangelicals chose Mr. Bush. Those Americans make up roughly one-fifth of all voters, and they didn't turn out for Mr. Bush in 2000. The White House made sure that wouldn't happen again. In February, the president came out for a constitutional amendment to prevent same-sex marriage, just as the Republican-led Ohio General Assembly was passing its own restrictive law. A same-sex constitutional amendment was on that state's ballot. All of it galvanized Ohioans for whom "moral values" matter more than the loss of 250,000 jobs.

We agree that values matter in the conduct of public life. We also suggest that John Kerry's personal values are no weaker than George Bush's, and that the values of Minnesotans and Vermonters, who went for Sen. Kerry, are no weaker than those of Oklahomans and North Carolinians, who went for Mr. Bush. But from the start, Republicans tagged Sen. Kerry as soft on national security and values. That's the John Kerry who won combat medals, worked as a prosecutor and is an observant Catholic.

With the country more split than at any time since 1968, Mr. Bush needs to become the "uniter" he claimed to be four years ago, not run a competition on values. But the odds are against it, since divisiveness has paid off so well. The president exploited 9/11 to get his Iraq resolution through Congress in 2002, then used national security as a club to gain GOP seats in Congress. Republicans used divisiveness this year, and the party gained four seats in the Senate and four in the House. With solid majorities in both chambers, Americans will learn soon whether Republicans can govern or just win elections.

Moderate, workable solutions to many national issues — energy, medical care, even legal rights for homosexual couples — are out there if Mr. Bush wants to make his second term productive. If he tries again to substitute ideology for good sense, Democrats can and should try to block any extreme proposals or appointments. To this point, the president's approach has paid off politically. The country is still waiting to see the benefits.

[mayfly]

President Bush won more popular vote than Clinton ever did. He truly is wanted by the US!!!!

[pandybat]

Originally Posted by mayfly

President Bush won more popular vote than Clinton ever did. He truly is wanted by the US!!!!

I just don't see the popular vote as that big a deal, I guess. Yes, it is one of many deciding factors as to who is ultimately elected President. But when you consider that almost 115 million people voted and Bush only took 3.8 million of those votes from than Kerry, it doesn't seem like he's all that popular. You can't deny the country is severly divided and that the issues those other 55,435,808 people voted for Kerry over should be ignored just because Bush was reelected. Now if Bush had taken it by a bigger percentage, then I would think it would really be something to talk about.

[mayor]

Originally Posted by pandybat

I just don't see the popular vote as that big a deal, I guess. Yes, it is one of many deciding factors as to who is ultimately elected President. But when you consider that almost 115 million people voted and Bush only took 3.8 million of those votes from than Kerry, it doesn't seem like he's all that popular. You can't deny the country is severly divided and that the issues those other 55,435,808 people voted for Kerry over should be ignored just because Bush was reelected. Now if Bush had taken it by a bigger percentage, then I would think it would really be something to talk about.

Now THAT is what I call SPIN! Nicely Done, Pandy :-)

[mrbowler]

"For an incumbent, wartime president, Mr. Bush had a narrow escape"

From what I have read/heard that during times of war the United States does not usually change commander in chief-although I do believe that the Republicans were able to bring it's base of voters out in larger numbers. If you go back you will find that this time around it was unusual for a second term winner to win by such a small margin(elec. college).

[pandybat]

Originally Posted by mayor

Now THAT is what I call SPIN! Nicely Done, Pandy :-)

Call it what you want. Yes, Bush won the popular vote but if you break it down, he didn't win by much.

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Let's say he won the popular vote by a rounded 6%, just to make it easier.

6% of 115 million sounds like alot. (Roughly 3 to 4 million.)

Consider that 6% of $1 is just 6 cents.
That's not much.

He won the popular vote but we've also had the best voter turnout in years.

Mandate, smandate. I think both campaigns just did a darn good job of getting voters out to the polls.

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Following President George W. Bush's victory over Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, conservative media rushed to declare that the election was a decisive mandate for Bush's agenda, and mainstream media outlets have followed their lead.

Their pronouncements echo Vice President Dick Cheney's November 3 claim that "President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation's future and the nation responded by giving him a mandate." But such pronouncements neglect important facts that suggest Bush's narrow victory is far from a decisive endorsement of his agenda:

• With the exception of the 2000 election, Bush's [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] of about 3.6 million votes (out of approximately 115 million total votes cast) was the [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now], when then-Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter (D) defeated President Gerald R. Ford (R) by about 1.7 million votes.

• Though Bush won more votes -- 59.2 million -- than any presidential candidate in U.S. history, Kerry's vote total -- 55.7 million -- was still greater than any U.S. presidential candidate in history prior to 2004. That means more Americans cast their vote against Bush than against any other presidential candidate in U.S. history.

• As Wall Street Journal Washington editor Albert R. Hunt pointed out (WSJ.com subscription required) on November 4, "It was a GOP sweep, but it also was the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916."

• Percentage-wise, Bush's victory was the narrowest for any wartime incumbent president in U.S. history. (For the purpose of this calculation, Media Matters for America counted the [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] as wartime incumbent elections: 1848, 1864, 1900, 1944, and 1972. Popular vote data for 1812 is unavailable.)

• A [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] conducted just after the election found that 63 percent of voters would prefer to see Bush pursue policies that "both parties support" compared to only 30 percent who want Bush to "advance the Republican Party's agenda."

Yet many conservatives in the media ignored or downplayed Bush's extraordinarily narrow margin of victory and the unprecedented number of voters who expressed opposition to Bush's agenda by voting for Kerry:

• The Wall Street Journal (Obviously one of Mayors favorite reads): "The voters did [decide the election] -- including millions of conservative first-timers whom the exit polls and media missed -- emerging from the pews and exurban driveways to give President Bush what by any measure is a decisive mandate for a second term. ... Just because an election is close doesn't mean it isn't decisive. ... We do already know ... that Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive." [Wall Street Journal editorial, "The Bush Mandate," 11/4/04]

• William J. Bennett, conservative author and nationally syndicated radio host: "Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it." [National Review Online, "The Great Relearning," 11/3/04]

• CNN host Tucker Carslon, co-host of CNN's Crossfire: "[N]obody has done it since 1988. The president wins reelection with a majority of the vote. It is a mandate. What will he do with it now? [CNN, Crossfire, 11/3/04]

• The New York Sun: "[i]t was hard, at 3:35 a.m., when these words were written, to see much point to the quest that Senator Kerry has undertaken in Ohio other than to indulge a certain kind of bitterness, to poison American politics for the coming term, and to seek to dilute the extraordinary mandate Mr. Bush, if not yet in the Electoral College, has received among Americans from coast to coast." [The New York Sun editorial, "The Popular Vote," 11/3/04]

• Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal contributing editor: "He [Bush] has, I would argue, a mandate now. You can bet he's going forward boldly. He announced it today in his victory speech. He said, 'Honey, I'm not just going to lower your taxes. I am transforming the tax system.'" [FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 11/3/04]

• Pat Buchanan, MSNBC political analyst: "There's no doubt about it, this was a vote against, by the red-state folks who gave the victory to George Bush, it was a rejection of blue-state America. It was a rejection of their values, their attacks on the president. ... And the idea, it seems to me, that somehow the folks who won should now surrender part of whatever mandate they have to the folks who lost -- I can tell you, what we're hearing on this panel, people out there in red-state America are finding it very offensive." [MSNBC, Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11/3/04]

• William Kristol, Weekly Standard executive editor: "The hair-pullers and teeth-gnashers won't like it, of course, but we're nevertheless inclined to call this a Mandate. Indeed, in one sense, we think it an even larger and clearer mandate than those won in the landslide reelection campaigns of Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984, and Clinton in 1996." [The Weekly Standard, "Misunderestimated," 11/15/04 issue]

Mainstream media outlets followed conservatives' lead in trumpeting Bush's narrow victory as a mandate:

• Tony Karon, TIME magazine columnist and senior editor: "George W. Bush took the reins of power with the confidence and certainty of one who had carried a landslide mandate to implement his own agenda. This time, of course, his claim of a popular mandate is incontrovertible. His party has strengthened its grip on both branches of the legislature, and freed of any first-term restraints that might be thrown up by reelection concerns, President George W. Bush is well positioned to even more vigorously pursue his agenda." [TIME, "Victorious Bush Reaches Out," 11/3/04]

• Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution global economics and business reporter: "Bush, buoyed by a popular mandate and a more Republican Congress, will probably receive the financial and military wherewithal to fight the insurgency and rebuild Iraq." [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Bush gets voters' nod on Iraq, but outlook risky," 11/4/04]

• Keith Miller, NBC News correspondent: "Bush, who won by more than three and a half million votes, has a solid mandate that will force the attention of America's enemies and allies." [NBC Nightly News, 11/3/04]

• Rafael Lorente, Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Washington bureau: "Americans not only gave President Bush a mandate, they also gave him the necessary tools in the form of more Republican House and Senate colleagues to push through his conservative agenda." [Sun-Sentinel, "Bush now has the tools to energize his priority programs," 11/4/04, syndicated by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services]

• Doyle McManus and Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times staff writers: "Four years ago, George W. Bush won his first term with fewer votes than his opponent, but governed as if the nation had granted him a clear mandate to pursue conservative policies. This time, Bush can claim a solid mandate of 51% of the vote, which made him the first presidential candidate to win a clear majority since 1988 -- a point Bush aides made repeatedly Wednesday." [Los Angeles Times, "Majority Win Could Make Second Term More Partisan," 11/4/04]

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] The danger is that the Republicans will see this as a mandate to control. That is not the case.

Tuesday's election that gave President Bush four more years and strengthened his party in Congress was by no means a definitive mandate for change.

It was, instead, a signal of how divided the country is. It clearly means the country needs a president who will unify both sides to address the critical issues facing the voters -- the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy, affordable prescription drugs and health care, jobs.

Bush must draw on the same fortitude he showed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when he rallied the country behind him, to bring the diverse electorate to a meeting ground.

There never has been a more urgent need for unity. That is Bush's mandate.

Extra credit reading:
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[pandybat]

In summary....

.........over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004.

[mayor]

Statistics, etc... Amazingly, even the leftist members of the mainstream media got it right this time. It IS a mandate. I must say though, it was hysterical watching Dan Rather on CBS and Larry King on CNN trying to spin it on election night. I thought they both cr*pped their pants.

The truth is Bush is going to do exactly what he said he was going to do. This idea of "working with Democrats" is nonsense. They are not happy unless he does what they want. And even when he did meet them halfway, they still turned on him.

The President DOES have a mandate from the popular majority of America, and as he said in yesterday's press conference, he now has political capital to spend.

I hope he blows right by the obstructionist liberals that have tried to stifle his agenda. This term is going to be more significant than the first. The changes forthcoming will change the face of America for at least an entire generation.

And it WILL be good for you and your family. :-)

Mayor

[crazytimes]

I guess there are some people that don't think reforming the ridiculous tax code or ensuring that todays young generation receives social security when they retire (which we WILL pay into our entire lives whether we get anything or not; trust me the baby boomers have nothing to worry about, THEY'LL get their money).

[chippers21]

I just have to say that many of you here (you know who you are) went on and on about how Gore won the last election because he won the popular vote by the narrowist of margins. You went on and on about how he should be the President because more people voted for him. Now you want to discount a 3 and a half million difference in Bush's favor. You cannot have it both ways. Sorry.

[bobbcat]

Why be sorry for nicely pointing out the fallacy of their logic, chippers? Just another example of their habit of putting forth a double stnadard in their approach to making a comparison.

[luvmetender]

Originally Posted by chippers21

I just have to say that many of you here (you know who you are) went on and on about how Gore won the last election because he won the popular vote by the narrowist of margins. You went on and on about how he should be the President because more people voted for him. Now you want to discount a 3 and a half million difference in Bush's favor. You cannot have it both ways. Sorry.

No one is saying that Bush didn't legitimately win the election (at least I'm not) but to say he won by a landslide is not true either. And can't you guys stop gloating for just a few days? I am very depressed

[bobbcat]

Why be depressed, luv? Our democratic process has worked once again. You cannot rise above your own personal frustration that your guy did not win to see that? Just try to imagine how many of us felt when watching Bubba win not just once, but twice!! (Personally, I found myself cursing that darned little grenade-head Perot..LOL).