Bush: wedging to victory
During his first campaign for the White House, President George W. Bush told America, “I am a uniter, not a divider.” Four years later, his campaign focused on dividing the electorate against itself, not on uniting America behind his leadership. In seeking reelection, the president and his chief political advisor, Karl Rove, focused on one political group: conservative Christians. While his strategy was smart politics and returned him to the White House, it is dangerously undemocratic.
The logic is simple. In a two-person race in the U.S., one candidate needs exactly one vote more than his opponent to win. All the president had to do was get one vote more than John Kerry in states with a total of 270 electoral votes. To win, Bush and Rove calculated that they needed four million more conservative Christians to go to the polls than went in 2000.
Bush won the popular vote by about 3.5 million votes, which is hardly a mandate in an election where 120 million voted. Twenty-two percent of voters cited ‘moral values’ as the most important issue. The number of voters who believe that abortion should always be illegal increased by three percent this year over 2000, even while the percentage in the general population has dropped. Bush motivated his conservative Christian base and won the election.
In turning out his base, Bush drove a wedge right down the center of America and succeeded in making his slice just large enough to win the presidency. Gay marriage was the wedge. Bush and his socially conservative allies used gay marriage amendments at the federal level and in 11 important states to hammer in this wedge to get as many religious conservatives to the polls as possible.
Smart politics, but not democratic. Bush did not reach out to all Americans-just the few he needed to win. He never tried to persuade those skeptical of his policies. He allowed only his supporters into his campaign appearances. Aside from a few Spanish words, he never tried any other strategies to bring new groups of people to the polls. The result is an election that has dangerously divided the electorate and undemocratically overemphasized the values of the Christian right-at the expense of everyone else.
Brandon Holcomb
Graduate Assistant
The Colonnade
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Nov 12 2004. Filed under Opinion.
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