My Thought on the Election

[erpowers]

A few months ago a former Republican posted his opinion about the state of the Democratic Party. He claimed that this was not the Democratic Party's 1964 in that Democrats compromised in order to vote for Kerry. I agreed with the first part of his argument, this election was not the 1964 of the Democratic Party. I disagree with him on everything else. The following paragraphs will explain my disagreements and give my opinion on the election.

First, John Kerry did not lose this election by as much as Barry Goldwater did in 1964. In 1964 Barry Goldwater was totally defeated and only won a few electoral College votes.

There were many people who supported Kerry not just because they hated Bush. Many of the Kerry supporters chose to do so because he had some great ideas. If someone were to ask a Kerry supporters why he/she supported Kerry they could and would list many things including Kerry's stance on the Yucca Mountain issue, his pushing for hydrogen cars, and his health care plan. The vote for Kerry was not just about hating Bush and hating his policies, it was also about liking the idea of John Kerry and his policies.

Republicans compromised on many occasions. In California, many Republicans chose to back Arnold Schwarzenegger over the more conservative Republicans. In addition, it could be argued that Republicans first supported George Bush because of his last name and not his stances on the issues. With this election the Republicans truly compromised in that they supported Bush after he had created the largest deficit in history. To go back in history they supported Reagan after he had created what at that time was the largest deficit.

Now getting back to the election, Bush used fear and hatred to win the election. Throughout the Bush surrogates told the American people if they voted for Kerry America would be attacked again. So really, as one political cartoon said, the Bush/Cheney campaign told Americans, "Vote Bush or die". One week Dick Cheney claimed that if America voted for Kerry we would be "hit again and hit hard." Later Dennis Hastert and Lynn Cheney promoted the idea that Bush would be better able to handle a terrorist attack then Kerry. To compound all of this Kerry did not fight back hard enough. On many occasions people from the Bush/Cheney camp made horrible claims about Kerry and Kerry either did not respond or responded weakly.

Finally, the media did not do its job. On many occasions people from the Bush campaign conducted TV interviews were they make many false statements about Kerry's voting and Vietnam record. On many of those occasions especially on NBC'S Today Show none of the anchors pointed out that the Bush camp was recycling debunked lies. Also due to the media's lack of reporting people believed Bush supporting things that he did not support. Therefore more people were willing to vote for Bush.

With all this Bush was only able to get 51% of the vote and only won the election by 3 million votes. Therefore, this is not the Democratic Party's 1964. This election for many reasons was much better for the Democrats than for Goldwater in 1964. The Democratic Party has a good chance to swing a number of states into the Blue column. It is really possible that in two years the Democrats will control more of the state and national government.