That President Bush was reelected by a significant margin was perhaps a surprise to many and a shock to some.  There is no question that his decisive reelection gives him a mandate to work for the proposals and policies he articulated in the campaign.  He won by a 51% popular [majority] vote, winning by over a 3.5 million margin, and carrying 31 states, with an electoral tally of 286.  This is a good and unchallengeable victory.  In this first lengthy perspective, I want to offer some thoughts on this critical election and what it means for President Bush and what it means for the nation.

• First, there is no question that religion played an important role in the results.  Some statistics:  Protestants voted 59% to 40% for Bush; Catholics 52% to 47% for Bush and Jews 25% to 74% for Kerry.  Hence, the President won decisively among Protestants and Catholics.  What was more surprising was the evangelical vote:  78% to 21% for Bush.  Of those, 60% Hispanic evangelicals voted for the President.  Over the past four years, the president has been deliberately assembling the building blocks of a formidable faith coalition—and it worked.  It would be futile to reach any other conclusion than that President Bush was reelected by a coalition of conservative religious people throughout the nation.  Bush increased his vote among Catholics by 5%, an increase to 52% from 47%.  In some states, this was probably decisive.  What makes this remarkable is that John Kerry is a Catholic, the first Catholic candidate since 1960—and he lost!  However, what was absolutely decisive was the evangelical vote.  Voters who identified themselves as white born-again or evangelical Christians made up 23% of the electorate this year.  The President won 78% of that bloc of voters.  There is no question that several critical issues mobilized these various groups of religiously-oriented voters:  same-sex marriage, abortion, stem-cell research and pornography.  Perhaps the same-sex marriage issue was especially crucial, for it was on the ballot in 11 states in one form or another.  In many ways, the same-sex issue touched every segment of society—schools, media, TV, government and churches.  Little is outside the pale of its significance as an issue, and, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court mandated that the legislature treat homosexual marriage in the same legal terms as heterosexual marriage, the issue for the campaign was framed.  All 11 states approved marriage amendments.  Ethical and values issues explained the campaign’s results. 

• Second, the “values” issue also framed the way the two respective campaigns were run.  Bush repeatedly defined the “values” at stake in the election.  He introduced the subject in speeches by stating that “over the next four years, we will work to protect and defend the values that make our country such a unique place.”  He went on in identifying his support “for a culture of life in which every being matters and every person counts” and “in which marriage and family are the foundations of our society.”  Bush further contrasted himself with Kerry, noting his support for the partial-birth abortion bill and for the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, both of which Kerry opposed and voted against.  Further, Bush cited judicial restraint as a value—“I stand for judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law.”  [This was an obvious reference to abortion opinions and recent same-sex marriage opinions.]  Kerry simply could not successfully reach out to people concerned about the values that Bush identified—people who draw their ethical values from their religious beliefs.  Kerry never really found a way to speak to them.  In fact, he stumbled often in critically significant ways.  For example, at a fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall that featured big-name movie stars and other artists, many of them thundered against Bush, calling him a “liar” and a “thug.”  There were gross references to immorality and there was horrific profanity.  At the end, Kerry stated that these performers conveyed “the heart and soul of America.”  Clearly, Kerry was out of touch when it came to personal values. 

• Third, President Bush will now have a very different Congress to work with.  There were significant gains in both the House and the Senate.  The defeat of the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, was, next to Bush’s own win, the Republican’s most significant victory.  Daschle was a consistent, effective and highly partisan obstructionist who blocked not only legislation but also presidential appointments, particularly those of conservative federal judges.  With Daschle gone and with the addition of four Republican senators giving the party a 10-vote margin in the Senate, Bush will probably no longer need to contend with Democratic filibusters preventing the Senate from voting on his judicial appointees.  This is of course critical, for during the next four years many expect three or four Supreme Court vacancies.  This does not count the many District Court and Courts of Appeals judges he will appoint.  President Bush should be able to insure a strong, conservative judiciary for a generation.  This could be one of his most significant legacies.  Whether his strong Republican support will extend to his desire to significantly alter the tax code, change Social Security, and deal with a significant energy bill remains to be seen.  But there is no doubt that President Bush should be able to wield his influence to a much greater degree in the new Congress.

• Fourth, John Kerry represented a Democratic Party in crisis.  Over the last 44 years, the US has elected presidents from three Southern states—Texas, Arkansas, Georgia—and southern California.  There has been no New England liberal chosen since John Kennedy.  Kerry ran, in the words of George Will, “a high-risk ‘biography candidacy’ based on a four-month period 35 years ago.  His contrasting silence about his nearly 20 Senate years echoed.  He was an anomalous kind of challenger.  The most important changes he promised would either be restorations or resistances.  That is, he campaigned as the candidate of complacency, albeit a curdled, backward-looking complacency.  Regarding foreign policy, he promised to turn the clock back to the alliance-centered foreign policy before the invasion of the ‘nuisance’ of terrorism.  Regarding domestic policy, he promised to stop the clock, preventing any forward movement on entitlement reform to cope with the baby boomers’ retirements.”  This must tell the Democratic Party something.  It is not forward thinking.  Furthermore, the Party allowed the Michael Moore faction to dominate its character.  Listen to Will: “Moore, the vulgarian, who made the movie ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ is unhinged in his loathing of Bush—and of the country that has now reelected him.  Moore and the hordes of his enthusiasts are a stain on the party. . . .”  The only 2000 red state that turned blue this year—New Hampshire—made the Northeast, from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Maine, blue.  New Mexico, a 2000 blue state, along with Iowa, turned red, completing a red swath from California’s southeastern border to the Atlantic.  The Democratic Party is increasingly a significantly minority party, and it has no one to blame but itself.  It is increasingly irrelevant to the majority of the states and the majority of US citizens.  This election seemed to seal that reality.

• Finally, the campaign illustrates that conventional wisdom and strategies are often dead wrong.  Nearly everyone in the Democratic Party believed that by focusing on the economy and Iraq, they would defeat President Bush.  Ohio became a test case for that strategy.  Kerry stressed the over 200,000 jobs lost in Ohio and he stressed the war in Iraq.  Both themes he pounded during his 46 visits to the state.  However, the Bush campaign emphasized social values.  While the two campaigns slugged it out on big-city TV stations with commercials about the war and the economy, Bush’s Ohio campaign used targeted mailings, phone calls and doorstep visits to talk about values.  The emphasis was “George W. Bush shares your values.  Marriage.  Life.  Faith.”  Further, Bush’s organization may have been more cohesive and coordinated.  His organization did a better job than Kerry’s in getting out the vote on 11/2.  In short, the matter of values trumped the issues of the economy and Iraq!  This occurred all across the nation.  In general, the American people remain concerned about matters of faith and values.  As long as the Democratic Party ignores this truth, they will continue to lose elections.

See Paul Farhi and James Grimaldi in the Washington Post (4 November 2004), George Will, Washington Post (4 November 2004), Lyn Nofziger, New York Times (7 November 2004), Terry Eastland, Wall Street Journal (5 November 2004), Alan Cooperman and Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post (8 November 2004, and Laurie Goodstein and William Yardley, New York Times (5 November 2004).

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YASIR ARAFAT AND THE PALESTINIAN TRAGEDY

As I am writing this, Yasir Arafat is apparently dying in a French hospital.  His life and his imminent death personify the tragedy of the Palestinian people.  Several thoughts:

• First, Yasir Arafat embodied the Palestinian national movement, from the campaigns of terror through exile and the promising rise and dismal demise of the peace process.  As a result of the Oslo accords, which ostensibly recognized Israel’s existence, he was awarded the Noble Peace prize.  He was the only leader unequivocally recognized by all Palestinians--in the West Bank, in Gaza and those spread throughout the Middle Eastern world.  Yet, as that leader he never prepared his people for the necessity of compromise with Israel.  In the waning days of the Clinton administration, he was offered sovereignty over the West Bank and a part of Jerusalem, but refused to accept it because he demanded the right of return of Palestinians to Israel, something Israel would never accept.  He demanded all or nothing and ended up with nothing.  He is a tragic leader, who espoused greatness but ended up with nothing for his people.

• Second, he made no serious attempt to build a competent government below him or to prepare his people for the responsibilities of statehood.  He ruled without trusting anyone.  He hoarded money given to help the Palestinian people and used it for himself.  Some estimates are that his personal fortune exceeds $1.5 billion.  His wife lives in luxury in Paris while his Palestinian people suffer economically and socially.  He was a corrupt and greedy leader.  Tom Friedman contends that he could not find one speech in which Arafat laid out his vision for how Palestinians would educate their youth and nurture their talents.  His obsession was with Palestinian “land,” not Palestinian “life.”  After every defeat, Arafat stood on the ruins and flashed a victory sign.  “While his wife lived in Paris and his cronies lined their pockets, two generations of Palestinians remained in their poverty and displacement.”  Arafat refused to tell his people the truth:  “Palestine will have to be divided with the Jews forever.  We must make the best final deal we can over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem—without double talk about getting the rest later—and then build the finest society we can.” 

• Finally, a note about the future.  With the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the imminent death of Arafat, the Arab world has a real opportunity.  Under Saddam and Arafat, Iraqi and Palestinian nationalisms were devoid of any positive agenda for developing all the men and women in these two societies.  They were focused on negative agendas of resisting outsiders and buying more weapons than computers—because that is what served their one-man rulers.  This negative nationalism kept their people mobilized, externally focused and never able to ask about education and democracy.  With these two men gone, there is now a potential watershed in modern Arab history—turn your back on negative nationalism and one-man dictatorships.  Embrace the opportunity to change your societies and become true democracies.  The haunting question for both is “Will they use this moment to hold elections and build a bridge to a society of institutions and laws, or will they simply build a bridge to another one-man ruler?”  That is the question the Iraqis and the Palestinians now face.  How they answer this question will, negatively or positively, change their societies, their region and potentially the world.

See Friedman’s brilliant analysis in the New York Times (7 November 2004) and an editorial in the same paper (6 November 2004).

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