Friday, November 19, 2004
The Unfounded Mandate
Ok. We get it. Bush won. Yes, I know, more voters than any other presidential election since 1968. Yes, he is the first president to win an election with a majority of voters rather than a plurality since his father did it in 1988. Indeed, conservatives around the country are jumping in front of any television camera they can find to tout the plethora of reasons why it was their special interest group that pushed Bush over the edge. The inundation of media coverage to these facts has been so pervasive that one cannot turn on the television, nor read news nor surf on the internet, without suffering from a barrage of pundits who each offer their own not-so-original take on the presidential election. But I am not here to complain about the media, nor am I here to complain about the results of the election. If nothing else, we can take solace in the fact that for the first time in eight years, democracy worked. To the victor go the spoils.
I do find it difficult to swallow the so-called mandate that president and his followers seem to think he has. There are numerous problems with the mere idea that someone who garnered only 51% of the vote has a clear statement from the American people to pursue an agenda that less than 25% of the population fully supports. Don't get me wrong, Bush will win quite a few battles in his pursuit to conservatize the nation – if only for the fact that his party has a majority in Congress and he doesn't have another office to run for. But to presume a mandate is a stretch at best.
A quick look at some election data shows that indeed Bush's mandate, isn't so mandated. In fact, except for larger urban areas where Bush was pounded by Kerry and the large expanses of the prairie-west that, while are also less populated, went soundly for Bush, the country is, and remains, very "purple" (or at least mauve). It indicates that the country is still very split, and is still very moderate. If anything, the country mandates that Bush move to the middle. After all, very nearly half of the country thinks he did a poor job in his first term. All of the data indicates that they didn't vote for Bush because he wasn't conservative enough.
The most dangerous assertion that is being made on a daily basis is that the so-called "Born Again Evangelicals" are solely responsible for Bush's victory. It took very little time for Bob Jones to close the gap between himself and the president after more than four years of estrangement. In his "Congratulatory Letter To George W. Bush" he claimed, " In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly. Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you." Whatever world Bob Jones lives in, it isn't one anchored in reality. If nothing else, it is a slap in the face to the 77% of the population who don't identify themselves as "Born Again/Evangelical" much less the 21% of those who do identify themselves as such and still voted for Kerry.
Many pundits have attributed the "success" of "Born Agains" as a voter block to the inclusion of "Same Sex Marriage Ban Amendments" on the ballot of 11 states. Karl Rove is praised for his foresight in anticipating the power of social conservatives in this regard. Yet, even Andrew Sullivan disputes the effect that they had on these states. In the end, Evangelicals had roughly the same impact as other voter blocks around the nation, perhaps less so when you consider that the largest voting blocks of Evangelicals were in states that were "red" anyway (their chief help in these areas being expanding an already double digit Bush lead). However, if we are to assume that Rove (Bush) used this strategy to great effect, then perhaps Howard Dean had the best analysis. In a speech at Northwestern University (as quoted in truthout.org), he stated:
Ok. We get it. Bush won. Yes, I know, more voters than any other presidential election since 1968. Yes, he is the first president to win an election with a majority of voters rather than a plurality since his father did it in 1988. Indeed, conservatives around the country are jumping in front of any television camera they can find to tout the plethora of reasons why it was their special interest group that pushed Bush over the edge. The inundation of media coverage to these facts has been so pervasive that one cannot turn on the television, nor read news nor surf on the internet, without suffering from a barrage of pundits who each offer their own not-so-original take on the presidential election. But I am not here to complain about the media, nor am I here to complain about the results of the election. If nothing else, we can take solace in the fact that for the first time in eight years, democracy worked. To the victor go the spoils.
I do find it difficult to swallow the so-called mandate that president and his followers seem to think he has. There are numerous problems with the mere idea that someone who garnered only 51% of the vote has a clear statement from the American people to pursue an agenda that less than 25% of the population fully supports. Don't get me wrong, Bush will win quite a few battles in his pursuit to conservatize the nation – if only for the fact that his party has a majority in Congress and he doesn't have another office to run for. But to presume a mandate is a stretch at best.
A quick look at some election data shows that indeed Bush's mandate, isn't so mandated. In fact, except for larger urban areas where Bush was pounded by Kerry and the large expanses of the prairie-west that, while are also less populated, went soundly for Bush, the country is, and remains, very "purple" (or at least mauve). It indicates that the country is still very split, and is still very moderate. If anything, the country mandates that Bush move to the middle. After all, very nearly half of the country thinks he did a poor job in his first term. All of the data indicates that they didn't vote for Bush because he wasn't conservative enough.
The most dangerous assertion that is being made on a daily basis is that the so-called "Born Again Evangelicals" are solely responsible for Bush's victory. It took very little time for Bob Jones to close the gap between himself and the president after more than four years of estrangement. In his "Congratulatory Letter To George W. Bush" he claimed, " In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly. Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you." Whatever world Bob Jones lives in, it isn't one anchored in reality. If nothing else, it is a slap in the face to the 77% of the population who don't identify themselves as "Born Again/Evangelical" much less the 21% of those who do identify themselves as such and still voted for Kerry.
Many pundits have attributed the "success" of "Born Agains" as a voter block to the inclusion of "Same Sex Marriage Ban Amendments" on the ballot of 11 states. Karl Rove is praised for his foresight in anticipating the power of social conservatives in this regard. Yet, even Andrew Sullivan disputes the effect that they had on these states. In the end, Evangelicals had roughly the same impact as other voter blocks around the nation, perhaps less so when you consider that the largest voting blocks of Evangelicals were in states that were "red" anyway (their chief help in these areas being expanding an already double digit Bush lead). However, if we are to assume that Rove (Bush) used this strategy to great effect, then perhaps Howard Dean had the best analysis. In a speech at Northwestern University (as quoted in truthout.org), he stated:
"The truth is the president of the United States used the same device that Slobodan Milosevic used in Serbia. When you appeal to homophobia, when you appeal to sexism, when you appeal to racism, that is extraordinarily damaging to the country," Dean charged. "I know George Bush. I served with him for six years [as a fellow governor]. He's not a homophobe. He's not a racist. He's not a sexist. In some ways, what he did was worse ... because he knew better."It seems to me that we have an obligation in this society to not allow those few people who labor with fringe ideas but who happen to have the loudest voice dictate policy. It is somewhat ironic that for all of the talk of "compassionate conservatism" it is the politics division and hate that Bush, Rove and the Bush administration claim as the key to victory. Whether it is pressure to force an upstanding career politician out of an office he deserves (Arlen Specter) or revising House rules to allow an ethically challenged politician to retain his power (Tom Delay), the Bush administration must be extraordinarily careful not to assume that a win equals a "mandate." The legacy that Bush wants is not the one he will earn if he continues to move to the right and bow to religious and social zealots. Bush would do well to listen to what John Kerry had to say during the debates if he were truly interested in obtaining a mandate: no matter what your beliefs, you don't have the luxury of governing only 25% of a nation or even 51% of a nation. Bush is the leader of the whole nation and 48% of us are here to make sure he's our leader too.
Dean also criticized Bush for the ballot initiatives in 11 states calling for gay marriage to be outlawed, saying this "had only one effect, which is to appeal to homophobia and fear and gay-baiting in order to win a presidential election."
