Four More Years

3 November 2004


Bush Wins Popular Vote, Court Challenges Can’t Stop Electoral Win

As predicted in these pages back in December, President Bush has won another four years in the White House. This time, he has a majority of the popular vote, and while there may be a court challenge to the results in Ohio, there is little hope for Senator Kerry’s campaign. The most “important election of our times” was significant in that it looks almost exactly like the 2000 election – nicknamed the “Seinfeld Election” because it was about nothing at all.

While there are a few states yet to be decided, the red states and blue states (with the exception of New Hampshire) hasn’t changed in four years. The Solid South still exists, although it is Republican these days, the Northeast and West Coast are strongly Democratic. The result is a Democratic strategy that was outlined here back in February. Ohio was identified as a key state the Dems had to win, they didn’t, and the rest is a footnote to history. 9/11, terror, job loss, gay marriage had no discernable effect in that the two Americas appear to see the same thing in two highly distinctly ways.

The onus is upon the Democrats to reconfigure their party. No Democrat has won a majority of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976 (and he garnered 50.1%). If a party cannot win except in a three-way race, it becomes a permanent minority movement depending on serious splits within the incumbent party. There will be claims that a more leftist candidate (Howard Dean, for instance) could have beat up the president on Iraq far more effectively, that there is a huge number of non-voters aching to vote for something new, and that it was a dirty campaign led by Karl Rove (the most evil Norwegian since Vidkun Quisling) that undid war hero John Kerry. This is all wrong. America’s political center has shifted in the last 40 years; Mr. Kerry ran on a platform not too much different from Mr. Nixon’s in 1972.

The change must be in three areas: candidate, issues and values. Patrician, elder statesmen-types don’t wear well. The Dems have to quit nominating them no matter how much they look presidential. Issues like gun control may have to be jettisoned because the party merely loses single-issue votes every time the matter arises. The GOP won the battle over values with Ronald Reagan, painting the Democrats as against the flag, motherhood and apple pie. This last point will be the hardest to sell among the Democratic rank-and-file.

As for the Republicans, they now hold the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, most governorships and most state legislatures. The courts will follow through appointment. They have a grand opportunity to shape the country as they want, which means the risk of over-reaching. They also have no heir apparent for 2008, as yet. And of course, the second administration will have many of the bumblers from the first in it.

And a final note. There has not been any attack by foreigners on American soil since September 11, 2004. The enemy isn’t here, can’t get here, can’t operate here. The best they could do is sent a videotape. Isn’t it time to admit that the US is safe?

© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

Home