For Bush and GOP, a Validation
For Bush and GOP, a Validation (WaPo, A01)
Four years later, it is still a divided country — perhaps more sullenly than ever — but as a long election night bled into morning the evidence was clear that it is becoming a more Republican one. President Bush, his fate for winning a second term still officially uncertain, commanded the popular-vote majority that eluded him in 2000. And in an impressive run of battleground states, he seemed to win validation for a campaign that unabashedly stressed conservative themes and reveled in partisan combat against Democratic nominee John F. Kerry. On the same night, Republicans expanded their majority in the Senate and had the Democratic leader on the ropes. It seemed likely they would also make gains in the House, as voters in an age of terrorism seemed to let go of their 1990s preference for divided government and gave a narrow but unmistakable mandate for the GOP.
These gains came in the face of what Democrats for months had been touting as important advantages: a party unified early around its nominee, an energized base filled with grievance against the incumbent, unprecedented fundraising and voter mobilization efforts. They came despite some stiff headwinds for Bush, including a steady stream of bad news out of Iraq and a weak record on jobs. The results are “an indication that we still are clearly a divided nation,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at California’s Claremont McKenna College. But he added that Bush’s strong performance in Florida and a clear tilt his way in Ohio, combined with the GOP strength in Congress, means that this rough parity has gained a more “Republican edge.”
This tilt will mean little, of course, if Bush does not overcome lingering uncertainties — and likely legal challenges from Democrats — about an electoral college majority nearly within his grasp this morning. Although final judgment is still to come, yesterday’s balloting did in several instances validate important elements of the Bush political model. This strategy has been based from the outset of Bush’s term on carefully tending to the Republican Party’s conservative base, and a governing strategy based more often on trying to vanquish political adversaries rather than split the difference with them. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Iraq war, Bush strategists have also calculated that there is not so much difference between base voters and centrist “swing” voters — both, they maintained, are concerned above all with national security and lower taxes. The strategy defied the wisdom of many Democrats since Bill Clinton, which held that swing voters were a distinct political entity and would not respond to a president as partisan as Bush.
As it happened, though, Bush’s strategy last night worked much like it was supposed to, with most Republican-leaning states taken quickly off the table, and battleground Florida falling with relative comfort — 52 percent to 47 percent — into Bush’s column. In Ohio, where Kerry and independent liberal groups waged an unprecedented campaign to register and turnout new Democratic voters, Bush responded with an unprecedented effort of his own that seems to have produced roughly as many Republican voters in rural and “collar county” suburban areas.
“One bit of conventional wisdom was that high turnout would benefit the Democrats,” Pitney said. “Republicans may do it differently, but they proved they can produce high turnout, too.”
Indeed. This election has confounded the experts, defying the conventional wisdom at every turn.
