Mandate?

7 Dec 04

Yesterday, on C-Span, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol strutting and crowing about the "new Republican America," about the overwhelming Republican victory in the election and how significant it is. To Kristol, this election means Republican hegemony to the far horizon—as far as the eye can see. Red States Rule, Baby!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Bush win Ohio by just 2%? And if that had been switched around, if Kerry had won by 2%, wouldn’t Kerry be president elect? That’s an overwhelming Republican victory?

The reality is that the country is split right down the middle. Half the people support the Bush administration; half the people can’t stand the Bush administration. Make no mistake, a small minority of Democrats who voted were voting FOR Kerry—most saw him as a cipher, as the Man Who Wasn’t There. Most Democrats were voting ABB, Anybody But Bush. They were voting against Bush because they see him and his gang as a positive menace to our society and to the world. That’s fifty-five million Americans who hate Bush’s guts. And this is a mandate?

Maybe what Kristol was saying was something like this: “Look, Bush could not have done any worse in his first term. The economy is a disaster. He took a huge budget surplus and turned it into a huge deficit. He looted the treasury for his rich friends and told John Q. Public to go be fruitful and multiply with himself. On the world front, he took the immense goodwill expressed toward America after 9/11 and turned it inside out; now all the world hates us. He’s led us into a disastrous and unwinnable war in Iraq that is costing us hundreds of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. And yet, in spite of this unprecedented record of failure, Bush won! Can you believe it? HE WON! Hell, the Republican party could run a rabid and explosively-incontinent baboon and still win. THAT’S how strong the party is these days!”