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2004.03.19 — Government | George W Bush | Campaign 2004 | by Derek Jensen
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George is up a creek. [Bush campaign] |
Five hundred thirty-seven. That's the number of votes that election officials say George W Bush won by in the crucial Florida 2000 election. What other significance does it have? That's now fewer than the number of Americans who have died in Iraq since the start of the invasion in 2003. George W Bush has sent his margin of victory to their deaths.
I don't begrudge Bush his win. The election was a toss-up. Tens of thousands of votes were thrown out in Florida alone—as they are in every election in every state—because of voter mistakes. The election was literally too close to call; the margin of victory was well inside the margin of error.
But Bush took his win as if it were a mandate. He and his neo-conservative entourage had an agenda they intended to follow which included—come hell or highwater—tax cuts and ousting Saddam.
Americans went along with it for a while. Americans tend to give their president the benefit of the doubt in matters of state, but they also reserve the right to turn on him if his decisions turn out badly. Call it holding the president responsible or call it hypocrisy. It looks like they've decided that about his decision to invade Iraq.
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It's now no longer just possible that they could lose. It's starting to seem inevitable. |
Can you smell the desperation in the Bush/Cheney campaign? It's now no longer just possible that they could lose. It's starting to seem inevitable.
Bush's rush to Baghdad, his "up yours" UN policy, heavy-handed domestic security policy, and failed tax-based economic stimulus have horrified nearly everyone left of conservative. But they have also shocked and disgusted many conservatives themselves. That means that not only will more liberals be motivated to vote this November, but fewer conservatives will vote.
In the 2000 election, Al Gore was panned as boring and distant, even maligned as a liar, and convicted of guilt-by-association of Bill Clinton's crimes against... Hillary. Conservatives, tho, were hot to prove their disgust with Clinton in the polls.
Now the shoe is on the other foot, and conservatives who are slightly ashamed of Bush's policies (not that all of them are) will treat election day as just another Tuesday. But moderates and liberals will cram their local voting places and voice their discontent emphatically.
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[Bush] has sent his margin of victory to their deaths. |
John Kerry is not an inspiring leader. People even say that he is boring and distant, even malign him as a liar... but they've likely learned their lesson: don't vote, and you get the president you deserve.
Even if all other things were equal to the 2000 election, Bush would still be likely to lose. After all, military men and women are overwhelmingly conservative, and he has sent his margin of victory to their deaths.
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