Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and does not consent to be called Zeus."
Herakleitos of Ephesos
>[A little late... Pointed out by Ruy Teixeira]
>
>Los Angeles Times - November 15, 2004
>
>RONALD BROWNSTEIN / WASHINGTON OUTLOOK
>
>GOP's Future Sits Precariously on Small Cushion of Victory
>
>Amid all the postelection tumult, it's easy to lose sight of what
>President Bush did - and did not - accomplish in his reelection
>victory this month.
>
>Bush didn't build as commanding a presidential majority as some
>coverage has suggested, but he did significantly strengthen the
>Republican hold on Congress. One key question for the next four
>years is whether he can use that strong position on Capitol Hill to
>build a broader national coalition that would establish a more
>secure GOP edge in presidential contests.
>
>Measured by contemporary standards, Bush won a solid, even decisive,
>victory. With his 51%, he became the first president since 1988 to
>win a majority of the popular vote.
>
>He expanded his vote among Latinos, a key to maintaining the GOP's
>advantage in Florida and the Southwest. He cemented the Republican
>hold on rural and fast-growing exurban counties. Like Ronald Reagan
>in the 1980s, he demonstrated that a culturally conservative and
>tough-on-security message could make inroads among both married
>women and blue-collar men.
>
>In all, Bush increased his margin of victory in 20 of the 30 states
>he won last time and reduced the Democratic margin in 11 of the 20
>states he lost in 2000. With turnout surging, he won more popular
>votes than any of his predecessors. And he attracted this support in
>a difficult climate marked by an uneven economic performance at home
>and a grueling war in Iraq.
>
>Yet by the standards of previous reelected presidents, Bush's
>victory looks much more modest. Since the formation of the modern
>political party system in 1828, 11 presidents have won a second
>term, while four more - Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry
>S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson - won election after completing the
>term of a president who died in office.
>
>No single measure captures the extent of a presidential victory. The
>sheer number of voters that Bush inspired to turn out demonstrated
>impressive strength. But on several key indicators, Bush's victory
>ranks among the narrowest ever for a reelected president.
>
>Measured as a share of the popular vote, Bush beat Kerry by just 2.9
>percentage points: 51% to 48.1%. That's the smallest margin of
>victory for a reelected president since 1828.
>
>The only previous incumbent who won a second term nearly so narrowly
>was Democrat Woodrow Wilson: In 1916, he beat Republican Charles E.
>Hughes by 3.1 percentage points. Apart from Truman in 1948 (whose
>winning margin was 4.5 percentage points), every other president
>elected to a second term since 1832 has at least doubled the margin
>that Bush had over Kerry.
>
>In that 1916 election, Wilson won only 277 out of 531 electoral
>college votes. That makes Wilson the only reelected president in the
>past century who won with fewer electoral college votes than Bush's
>286.
>
>Measured another way, Bush won 53% of the 538 electoral college
>votes available this year. Of all the chief executives reelected
>since the 12th Amendment separated the vote for president and vice
>president - a group that stretches back to Thomas Jefferson in 1804
>- only Wilson (at 52%) won a smaller share of the available
>electoral college votes. In the end, for all his gains, Bush carried
>just two states that he lost last time.
>
>Another trend explains why all of this might matter to more than
>just historians: Throughout American history, the reelection of a
>president has usually been a high-water mark for the president's
>party. In almost every case, the party that won reelection has lost
>ground in the next presidential election, both in the popular vote
>and in the electoral college.
>
>The decline has been especially severe in the past half century.
>Since 1952 there have been six presidential elections immediately
>following a president's reelection. In those six races, the
>candidate from the incumbent's party has fallen short of the
>reelection numbers by an average of 207 electoral college votes and
>8.4 percentage points in the popular vote.
>
>Because his margin was so tight, Bush didn't leave the GOP with
>enough of a cushion to survive even a fraction of that erosion in
>four years. Even if the GOP in 2008 matches the smallest electoral
>college fall-off in the past half century - the 99-vote decline
>between Reagan in 1984 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 - that would
>still leave the party well short of a majority.
>
>So Bush needs a second term successful enough to break these
>historical patterns. That's where his gains at expanding the
>Republican margins in Congress could become critical. In 2002, Bush
>became the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 to
>win House and Senate seats during his first midterm election. This
>year, he became the first president since Johnson in 1964 to add
>House and Senate seats while winning another term.
>
>Make no mistake: Bush has been a driving force in the GOP
>congressional growth. Every Democratic House and Senate seat that
>Republicans captured this year came in states Bush carried twice.
>
>In Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia,
>where the GOP won Democratic Senate seats, at least 84% of Bush
>voters also supported the Republican Senate candidate, according to
>exit polls. More than three-fourths of Bush voters backed the
>winning Republican Senate candidates in South Dakota and Oklahoma.
>
>The scale of Bush's victory, compared with that of most other
>reelected presidents, doesn't provide the basis for claiming an
>extravagant mandate. But a mandate is always an abstraction. The GOP
>gains in Congress give Bush something more tangible: a solid
>majority in both chambers. And a majority crowded with politicians
>who partly owe their seats to his popularity in their state.
>
>Bush still needs some Democratic support to reach the 60 Senate
>votes required to break a filibuster. But he has enough
>congressional strength to pass an agenda that could define his party
>for 2008 and beyond. The question is whether the agenda he advances
>will expand or erode a presidential majority that, by historical
>standards, remains fragile.
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk