www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/03/politics/main653592.shtml
President Bush with chief political adviser Karl Rove, the "architect" of his re-election strategy. Kerr y but it wasnt, essentially because of these values issues."
com Chief Political Writer President Bush's campaign won re-election through the strategic gamble th at there was more to gain from galvanizing conservatives and stressing m oral issues than from reaching out to centrist voters. In what proved to be a pi votal endgame decision, the Bush-Cheney campaign refocused on the Buckey e State in the last two weeks, visiting it on seven of the last 12 days prior to the election. Previously, Mr Bush had paid more attention to Pennsylvania, visiting it more than any other state since he took office. Ohio lost one-fourth of the nations manufacturing jobs 230,000 since Mr Bush took office yet even there 23 percent of voters said morality was t he most important issue in determining their vote, second only to the ec onomy. "Ohio with the job loss figure should have been an easy win for Sen. Kerr y but it wasnt, essentially because of these values issues," said Gary B auer, a leading social conservative. Of those who said values matter ed most, 85 percent backed President Bush while just 14 percent supporte d Kerry. Though this was the first election since 1972 where war was at the forefr ont, exit polling showed moral values were a central issue to many Ameri cans. Though he won support from social conservatives nationwide, it was not ev angelical Protestants alone who tipped the scale in Mr Bush's favor. St rikingly, John Kerry, the would-be second Catholic president, was unable to capture more Catholic votes than Mr Bush, a born-again Christian. A n altar boy as a child, Kerry won only 44 percent of Catholics; Mr Bush improved on his 2000 mark, grabbing 55 percent of Catholic support. "Weve either got to find a way to win much more strongly among women, whi ch we have done in the past, which I believe we did in 1992. Or weve got to find a way to gain the trust of white men who do not believe that De mocrats serve their interests," said Steve Grossman, who co-chaired John Kerrys 1996 Senate campaign and was chairman of the Democratic National Committee during Bill Clinton's presidency. Indications are that evangelical whites turned out heavily for the presid ent in Ohio and elsewhere. A contributing factor for their high turnout may have been the amendment to ban same-sex marriage, which passed in Oh io, as well as in the ten other states. President Bushs chief political adviser, Karl Rove, pressed the Republica n secretary of state of Ohio to have the marriage ban on the ballot. Tho ugh all indications are Mr Bush had a principled belief that marriage s hould only be defined between a man and women, Rove believed the measure would galvanize his base even if it meant the estrangement of an estima ted 1 million gay Republicans. Rove's decision to largely ignore independent voters at the close of the election was a strategic gamble. But by early Wednesday morning, Rove lo oked to have hit the jackpot yet again. "They continue to be perceived as way out of ste p on these cultural issues. As a result of that, places like West Virgin ia, Ohio, Missouri, even states like Wisconsin, are now fertile ground f or the Republican Party." One key to President Bushs victory was that two core Kerry continuances y oung voters and African Americans did not turn out in to the degree nece ssary for Democrats to win. Though millions more 18-to-29-year-olds voted this year than four years a go, they remained the same 17 percent of the electorate as in 2000. In the crucial swing state of Florida, which Mr Bush won, blacks account ed for 12 percent of all voters, down from 15 percent in 2000. In Ohio, blacks were 10 percent of the electorate, up by only one percentage poin t from 2000. Leading civil-rights activist Jessie Jackson didnt expect this. Also a se nior adviser to Kerry, Jackson thought African Americans would swing the election to Kerry by turning out in massive numbers. We stayed with Truman because he was bringing the troops home," J ackson said on Election Day. "Blacks who could vote went to Eisenhower b ecause he promised to bring our boys home from Korea. Blacks shifted and went to Kennedy over Nixon and then to LBJ over Goldwater." Though Jackson wouldnt say it, the sense was African Americans in the end didnt feel they had a vested interest in a Kerry victory. On Wednesday, in a follow-up interview, he called his role in the Kerry campaign, "la rgely symbolic," indicating he was not involved in key decisions. Jackson said that one strategic mistake by the Democratic campaign was th at it did not have a "general election team" when Kerry secured the nomi nation in early March. Staffers to former President Clinton who were brought on in September wer e responsible for the more combative Kerry who emerged after his bad Aug ust, according to interviews with senior Kerry aides at the time. But Ja ckson's point is: why weren't they brought in sooner? A number of other strategic errors plagued the Kerry campaign. Among them : Kerry's vote against the $87 billion supplemental bill for Iraq and Afg hanistan, which allowed Republicans to hone their prime example of the D emocrat's "flip flopping." Kerrys choice of Southerner John Edwards as his vice presidential nomin ee, which did not tangibly benefit the Democratic ticket. A Democratic convention focused almost entirely on Kerry's Vietnam War heroics and barely at all on Kerrys three decades in public service. The failure to respond to attack ads by the Swift Boat Veterans for Tru th, who claimed Kerry lied about his Vietnam service and further accused him of betraying fellow GIs upon his return through his antiwar activit ies. Senior aides advised the Massachusetts senator not to respond to the Swif t Boat attacks, explaining that a response would only dignify the accusa tions. Aides interviewed in September said the advice infuriated Kerry, as it was counter to his intuition. By any measure, Kerry did not capture Americans' imagination. Democrats relied on voters back ing him against a wartime president out of pragmatism a tall hurdle. In the hours following Kerry's concession speech on Wednesday, Bush-Chene y chief strategist Matthew Dowd proudly touted a figure: for the first t ime in modern presidential history, the Republican turnout equaled that of the Democrats. The massive Republican turnout enabled Mr Bush to be the first president ial candidate to win an outright majority of the electorate since 1988. Though Mr Bush won 274 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 threshold by only four, he surpassed Ronald Reagan with the biggest popular vote tota l in US history: 58,864,724. "Democrats must be a 50-state national party, not a 17-state party," said Jackson.
John Kerry gave a concession speech to a room full of supporters at Boston's Faneuil Hall, urging the nation to come together while pled ging to still work toward Democratic goals.
The whole world was watching as Americans went to polls, and as Rich ard Roth reports from London, the reaction to President Bush's re-electi on victory was decidedly mixed.
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