US 2004 Election

President Bush re-elected

Originally from November 2004

What better occasion to start the zoltz.net O & A section than America's presidential election, one of the most important events in world politics. It took place on Tuesday November 2nd and marked the end of a long, close race between President George Bush, of the Republican party, and his main challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, of the Democratic party. The winner was Mr Bush. He will therefore stay in office for a second term.

The president always enjoyed the advantage of being at the helm of the country's war on terror. People are reluctant to change leadership at a time of war. Especially as Mr Bush is seen by many as a decisive leader with deep moral convictions, whereas Mr Kerry had a reputation for changing opinions.

Nevertheless, half a year before the election, Mr Kerry's prospects looked actually good. Mr Bush had turned the country's big budget surplus into a big deficit. Bad news was coming all the time from occupied Iraq, including pictures of abuse by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and, more disturbing still to the domestic audience, the appearance of military weakness created by an aborted assault on the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. Polling indicators such as voters' opinions about the direction of the country allowed for the possibility of a big Kerry victory.

Of particular benefit to Mr Kerry appeared to be the fact, much emphasised in his campaign, that he was a decorated Vietnam veteran. Americans were to elect a wartime president, and Mr Bush, after all, had avoided the Vietnam war by serving in the Texas Air National Guard. Mr Kerry had spent only little over four months of his military service inside Vietnam (some more on a ship off the coast), but during that short time he had been awarded five medals — three for wounds and two for bravery.

By August, however, Mr Kerry was facing a hostile campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (later incorporated into Swift Vets and POWs for Truth), a group of fellow Vietnam veterans. As far as their allegations concerned his bravery in combat and his medals, they proved largely unfounded. But he had to back down from a claim, repeatedly made after the war, to have crossed from Vietnam into neutral Cambodia during a patrol on Christmas 1968. And the group drew attention to his activities following his Vietnam service: having returned to America, Mr Kerry had joined an organisation called Vietnam Veterans Against the War, on behalf of which he had testified in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stating that an investigation by his organisation had produced accounts of frequent and brutal American war crimes in Vietnam.

That testimony now came to haunt Mr Kerry, which was somehow sad because — although his Cambodia story makes you think again — the willingness to face up to his own people's failings could indicate decency, perhaps more of it than found in many other political leaders the world over. Yet, on the other hand, remember America's image as a force for good, and you can think of the enemy (communists in the past, terrorists today) as an evil counterpart if you like. Mr Kerry's 1971 testimony does not fit in well. To have muddled the picture in this way is something Americans may expect from an academic historian, but probably not from their president and commander-in-chief.

After a successful party convention at the end of August, Mr Bush went clearly ahead in the polls. Then, in October, attention focused on the three televised presidential debates. In the first, Mr Bush appeared irritated and annoyed by Mr Kerry's criticism, maybe because, after four years as president, he was no longer used to being challenged so directly. He adapted well and performed better in the two subsequent debates, but the three debates as a whole still helped Mr Kerry regain momentum.

The race was wide open again and stayed so until the polling stations finally opened. Much would now depend on the comparative efficiency of the two parties' get-out-the-vote operations (ie, operations to get favourable voters to take part in the election, via door-to-door or telephone reminders, for example, or by offering transportation to the polls). Overall voter turnout soon appeared to be quite high in comparison to the previous presidential election. Mr Kerry's supporters took this as a promising sign, and early exit polls boosted their confidence further. But in the end it was Mr Bush who emerged victorious.

Arguably, despite the closeness of the contest, his people have given the president a clearer mandate than in 2000, the year they voted him into office. Not only has Mr Bush gained a majority in the electoral college, but, unlike in 2000, he beat his Democratic opponent in the actual popular vote as well. And this time voters knew better what to expect from a Bush presidency.

Which, of course, also means that this time they would be more to blame in case anything should go wrong — some experts have warned that Mr Bush's foreign policies, though forceful, might end up producing unintended consequences detrimental to the country's reputation, or in the long term even, paradoxically, to its security