President Bush Has Power but No Mandate (11/3/04)
by Dean Hartwell
George W. Bush has finally been elected President of the United States.
With his close electoral and popular vote victories, he still lacks a mandate to lead. However, Democrats have little power to stop Bush from cutting taxes, partially privatizing Social Security and continuing efforts to reform Medicare.
President Bush will have to find a satisfactory resolution to a war in Iraq that many in the United States are weary of. He’ll need to contend with a rising deficit and national debt. And he’ll be challenged by the situations in Iran, North Korea and other areas.
How will he find a way to fund his domestic agenda and foreign policy adventures with tax cuts? He never really said during the campaign so the nation is set up for a surprise.
The Democrats, on the other hand, must go back to the drawing board. They had all of the advantages a challenger could ask for – a struggling economy, an unpopular war and an incumbent who made mistakes but who could never admit them. But they forgot to present a candidate who could articulate differences in a way that voters could easily understand.
Kerry’s response to Bush’s question – “If you knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would you have still voted to give me authority to use force?” – a perplexing “Yes” – sealed his doom with many voters. Voters look for decisiveness from their leaders and flinched at his answer. Liberal Democrats in particular wanted a candidate who understood the foolishness of going to war in Iraq and many may have stayed home as a result on Election Day.
Kerry also responded slowly to the Swift Boat Veterans’ ads which questioned his valor during the Viet Nam War and his honesty after it. By delaying his counterattack for several days, he allowed another party to define him instead of defining himself. He left the voters confused as to whether he would fight for himself or even for them.
The Massachusetts Senator clearly outdebated the President in each of the three debates. He came across as smarter, more prepared and more articulate than Bush. Unfortunately, it was too late to make enough of a difference since most voters had already made up their minds.
But Bush did not come out of this election unscathed, either. Just as Kerry had to show his hand about the vote over authorization of the use of force in Iraq, Bush, too, had to show his hand. He had a chance to denounce the Swift Boat Veteran ads as the lies that they were but did not do so. He attacked Kerry the same dirty way that he attacked John McCain in the Republican primaries in 2000. Now we all know that he lacks the integrity he promised to bring to the job.
In the end, it was the voters who showed the hand that mattered most. They gave President Bush four more years with legitimacy they could not give last election. They confirmed Republican control of Congress again. That means that Bush has no one to blame for the mess he has created and will continue to create.
But the voters failed to show him an overwhelming victory in the manner of Presidents Reagan, Nixon and Johnson. Thus, President Bush has all the power he needs but still no mandate to go ahead and use it.