Looking Back...and Forward

With two weeks' perspective on the election, things have become a little more clear. I didn't get misty-eyed when Kerry lost. That's because he didn't lose -- Bush won. To put things in perspective, Kerry got more votes in the loss than Reagan did in his '84 landslide, or, for that matter, any other presidential candidate. Besides Bush in '04, that is. Like it or not, Bush was a 60 million vote winner, and Kerry put up the greatest challenge to an incumbent president in history, just going by the raw numbers (and let's not forget, my early prediction of Bush winning the popular and losing the electoral almost came true with Ohio -- which still hasn't called a winner yet.) Surely the Bush hatred fuelled many of the 55 million-strong Kerry voters, and the JFK camp played it right, mostly. Kerry's was a stealth candidacy. The election was a referendum on the incumbent -- a phrase which has become cliche -- and in a normal election Kerry would have garnered enough votes to win just by not being the incumbent. Pundits are saying with hindsight that the stealth candidacy strategy was wrong, because it didn't work. I think it might have been the only way to win. After all, it was going to be close no matter which way it went; just don't screw up and hope events unseat a polarizing wartime president. That almost happened. As time has elapsed, we are seeing some conventional wisdom subside. On election day, the talking heads blathered on about how the youth vote failed to get out this year (false) and how the Christian Right was the dominant factor in Bush's reelection (also false, apparently.) I think it came down to two things: Kerry's incessant negativity and his inability to articulate and drive home a different strategy for fighting terrorism. I realize the first of these two problems is directly tied to the stealth candidacy -- how can you call attention to the shortcomings of the incumbent without being negative? True, but it went overboard. One phrase that stuck with me throughout the last month of the campaign was Bush's comment in one of the debates: "A plan is not a litany of complaints." I believe this resonated with the American voter, who seeks optimism in his presidential candidate, particularly in these troubled times. As for the latter problem, I can only imagine Kerry's failure to articulate a clear plan for being more hawkish -- yes, more -- on terrorism than the present administration was a result of internal political decisions gone awry. This stuff's starting to leak out of the Kerry campaign boat: the discord between the domestic and foreign policy fiends shaping Kerry's agenda and the general disagreement over what the campaign's message should be (and, not incidentally, Bob Shrum should never again be allowed near a presidential campaign). Kerry should have pounded upon Bush's inability to find bin Laden, promised to get tougher on Iraq's neighbors, argued for more rather than fewer troops in Iraq, made a guarantee that he would find Osama or quit in 2008. Who cares what Michael Moore thinks. Perhaps this perspective is just me casting the best light of the effort we put out on the ground in Nevada and elsewhere. Whatever. Fact is, without dominant get-out-the-vote efforts Kerry could have lost by 10 million votes. And if you think Bush has a mandate to pursue his agenda now -- or even if you don't -- just imagine the consequences of that outcome. Because you must understand that this election was an experiment. Karl Rove hypothesized that it would be possible for a Republican to win the White House by only catering to the right-wing base and ignoring, if not rebuffing altogether, independents and moderates. That basically happened: Kerry won the independent/moderate vote 55-45 or so and still lost the electoral and popular votes. You don't need me to tell you what will be the policy consequences of Dr. Rovenstein's successful experiment.