Regards, Ivan
Posted on 11/06/2002 4:39:28 PM PST by MadIvan
George W Bush has succeeded in doing something that neither Dwight Eisenhower nor Ronald Reagan managed in a mid-term election - translating his personal popularity into congressional gains for his party.
He did so despite facing a set of generally strong Democratic incumbents, such as the disabled Vietnam veteran Senator Max Cleland of Georgia and Senator Jean Carnahan of Missouri. Likewise, Governor Roy Barnes of Georgia lost to his Republican opponent, Sonny Perdue. Mr Perdue thus became the first Grand Old Party candidate to hold that office since Reconstruction, further consolidating the Republicans' grip on the "solid South".
Why this remarkable outcome? Most obviously, American voters as a whole jibbed at the prospect of leaving the Commander-in-Chief weaker on the verge of a possible campaign against Saddam Hussein. But specific segments of the electorate also rejected the targeted Democratic message. Thus, in states such as Florida, Maryland and Missouri, blacks did not respond in anything like the numbers required to repeated suggestions that the Republican Party was seeking effectively to disfranchise them by making it harder to vote.
Perhaps this reflects the diminution in black-white tension since September 11, that indiscriminate carnage. Nor, for that matter, did Hispanics respond to the Democrats' attempt to portray the Republicans as unsympathetic to their interests: non-Cuban Latinos in the Sunshine State gave a majority of their votes to Governor Jeb Bush.
Likewise, the "GI Generation" of retirees, which reached its peak as a proportion of the electorate in these contests, did not believe that President Bush would terminate Social Security as they knew it. Despite short-term stock market losses, investors obviously calculated that a tax-cutting Republican-controlled Congress will represent a better long-term bet than its Democratic counterpart.
They are right: Mr Bush seems likely to press for the abolition of death duties. If corporate scandals such as the Enron debacle matter to voters, they certainly did not blame the Bush Administration. Indeed, the all-round harshness of Democratic tone in many races led the public to conclude that for all their willingness to spend money on worthy causes, they were the "nasty party".
President Bush now enjoys the only mandate which matters to him: that of the American people. Our belief is that he will press ahead with plans to liberate Iraq, whatever happens at the UN. His tilt towards the more consensual approach of his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had much more to do with avoiding internal disunity in the Administration in the run-up to the congressional elections than with any intrinsic faith in the prospect of a damascene conversion by the more recalcitrant members of the Security Council.
The America which emerges from these elections is thus more united than at any time since the height of the Cold War. The line favoured by many Europeans - that you somehow can love America while militantly opposing its policies - is looking increasingly threadbare. So, too, is the absurd idea that Mr Bush is some sort of dunce. We predict that he will be the recipient of "strange, new respect" from the political classes of the Continent, and not before time.
Regards, Ivan
And millions of us were praying for a successful outcome. Thanks be to God!
I am delighted by the result - but I hope that next time you'll have better luck in getting rid of the dreadful Julia Carson.
Regards, Ivan
George Bush has avoided the media's glare today and sent out Ari Fleicher, his spokesman, to say that the victory belongs to the candidates who won their races. He continues to exhibit modesty and a dignified charm unlike Bill Clinton who was/is always preening for the camera and slinging the bull. I am so proud of our president and our country right now.
This should be a very interesting lame-duck session in Congress.
Go W!
Regards, Ivan
Reagan is a good example of this. He simply tried to do what he thought was right. That's the beginning, middle and end of what he was doing. But because there isn't interns, corruption and so on involved, the Hollywood folk construe this as being unintelligent. Which is ridiculous.
It's the same with President Bush.
Regards, Ivan
BC was positively obnoxious at the Wellstone pseudo-Memorial service (and Hillary too).
One bone to pick with this otherwise great article. Most pundits would not have considered Jean Carnahan to be in that group of generally strong demorat incumbents.
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