Election ’04 Flashback
One Year Ago—on November 2, 2004—121,480,019 voters (give or take) went to the polls.
From Al Franken’s The Truth (with jokes):
The dust had not yet settled on the most narrow election victory by an incumbent president in the history of the republic. Bush’s edge was 2.5 percent, smaller even than Woodrow Wilson’s pathetic 1916 victory margin of 3.2 percent. [It] really chapped my ass when Cheney claimed a “broad nationwide victory” and a “mandate” for Bush’s “clear agenda.”
Cheney wasn’t alone. And now, looking at the utter train wreck that has become Bush’s second term (and legacy), we fondly rub the pundits’ and press’s nose into their own poop from one year ago…
“Bush now has a mandate.”
—Bill Bennett
“This time, of course, his claim of a popular mandate is incontrovertible.”
—TIME magazine
“It is a mandate.”
—Tucker Carlson
“He has, I would argue, a mandate now.”
—Peggy Noonan
“The president’s people are calling this a mandate. By any definition I think you could call this a mandate.”
—NPR’s Morning Edition
“He’s going to say he’s got a mandate from the American people, and by all accounts he does.”
—Wolf Blitzer, CNN
“Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“In one sense, we think it an even larger and clearer mandate than those won in the landslide reelection campaigns of Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984, and Clinton in 1996.”
—Bill Kristol
“This time, Bush can claim a solid mandate of 51% of the vote…”
—Los Angeles Times
“Mr. Bush no longer has to pretend that he possesses a clear electoral mandate.”
—New York Times
For his part, Bush displayed his trademark modesty:
Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.
Today, the president’s Political Capital Visa card is maxed out, and the new bankruptcy bill he signed can’t bail him out (smart move, pal). Today C&J looks back at our morning-after reaction to Election Night ’04. Being the Nostradamus-lite that I am, I saw storm clouds hovering over a second Bush term. But these weren’t storm clouds caused by the stabilization of a mesoscale region through violent heat exchange between the lower and upper atmospheres, fueled by diurnal heating, UV radiation, and moisture advection. No, these clouds were caused by idiots who thought the violent heat exchange coming from between their left and right butt cheeks didn’t stink.
The past 365 days have vindicated the notion that the truth will always wriggle out, and democracy, messy as it can be, still works. C&J’s one-year FLASHBACK…ashback…ashback starts in There’s Moreville… [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
