Posted on 11/06/2004 3:40:42 AM PST by notkerry
There is simply no calculating the victory that was Tuesday. But that victory was not so much in the results.
No, it was not that George W. Bush beat John Kerry, beat the media, beat the French, and generally whipped every tail in sight to become the first president elected by a majority since 1988 and the highest vote-getter of all time. That was good. But that wasn't it.
It wasn't the tectonic shift in the Senate either, as astonishing as that was. Oh, everyone knew a four-seat shift to the Republicans was possible, but no one dared predict it. Certainly no one dared predict a newly conservative composition of the enlarged Republican majority so great as to render hard-left “Republicans” like Arlen Specter in trouble and Lincoln Chafee irrelevant.
But the Senate earthquake isn't the biggest victory either.
Nor was it the eleven out of eleven states which overwhelmingly amended their constitutions to officially define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Nor was it (as Dick Morris suggests, though he has an excellent point) that George Bush cut Al Gore's margin among Hispanics in half: Republicans are bringing that hard-working, values driven people home.
Nor was it the greatly increased likelihood of pro-life Supreme Court justices, better laws respecting the Second Amendment, meaningful Social Security reform, or even the President's promise to enact fundamental tax reform, likely in the form of a flat tax, thereby igniting an economic boom of Asian Tiger proportions.
No, any and all of these things would be a great victory - for Republicans and for America - all by themselves. And yet the greatest victory lies deeper, undergirding them all.
It's the story of how we got there.
You see, for years I've been telling you - in this column, in the media and in speeches around the country - one simple truth: only about half of Americans vote, even in high turnout years. Those who vote do so for a reason, and that reason is always that they care about something, or someone. You must motivate people to turn them out. Annoy them and they stay home. There's always room to expand either group. And the guy who turns out more of his supporters always wins.
Almost no Republicans have understood this. They have listened to a left-wing media trying to destroy them, constantly telling them to “run to the middle” (as if people who want to elect liberals won't just vote for a real one). They have listened to their paid consultants, who make ungodly sums on television ads but not a penny organizing volunteer GOTV (get out the vote) efforts. And they have listened to their own officeholders, who, having picked the low-hanging fruit, managed to get elected by doing these things, but whose counsel is virtually worthless in the harder battles being fought today.
I have preached this for years. Run to your base: give them a reason to vote by giving them an agenda worth voting for and meaning it. And then organize the activists necessary to find them and get them to the polls. Here lies the Holy Grail, I've said, and for years been laughed at by all.
All, that is, except three men: Morton Blackwell, and Karl Rove. Oh, and George W. Bush.
Morton has been the apostle of all this since before I was born. A real-life conservative hero, Morton has trained more conservatives than anyone alive. After the debacle of 2000, Morton convinced the RNC that something had to be done, that TV was no longer enough, that mere survival required a ground war, that a serious ground war might bring a national realignment.
They listened. So did Rove and Bush. And the elections of 2002 and 2004 are the (early) result.
And yet even that is not the ultimate victory of 2004.
For all these years I've told you: the future of the Republican coalition lies with Evangelical Christians. Only a tiny part of them - just a quarter - normally vote: this means that, more than any other group in America, with sufficient motivation, they could flood the electoral process and utterly reshape America. If Christians voted according to their numbers, the left could never win another national election, the Congress would be overwhelmingly conservative, the radical social agenda would be crushed, and a better, freer America would quickly emerge.
Tuesday night it finally began to happen. George W. Bush, a host of good Senate candidates, and multiple same-sex marriage amendments motivated them to vote. The Republican ground war - including my Vanguard PAC's efforts in Florida - got them to the polls. Despite being completely ignored by the pollsters, almost a quarter of all voters nationwide identified “moral values” as the reason they voted, and as the infamous libertine Hunter S. Thompson put it, “they voted like they prayed.”
It's just the beginning. But I told you so. And America will never be the same again.
I hope not. I hope this country is transformed into a nation liberals won't recognize, God willing.
I think this guy overestimates himself... if he's the one I'm thinking of who taped a message to be played on people's answering machines. I received it, was unimpressed and thought it was coarse. Not that that mattered, since I'd already voted for Bush because of the tax cut, his handling of the war, and foreign policy. And because I couldn't stand the thought of Jane Fonda and Barbara Streisand sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom - together or apart. Yick.
So why then when given the chance to really show his conservative credentials did President Bush give centrist answers ergo his answer in the third debate on a litmus test for federal and supreme court nominees or whether being gay was or wasn't a choice. These were very "to the base" questions and the President softballed his answer. Or was there a "coded given" to the core constituents that the the folks the rest of us missed.
Me too
Your reply seems incoherent. Rewrite, please.
Boy, this guy seems to be full of himself! "I have been telling this for years".
Just what I said. Liberals want a secular country like those in Canada and Europe. Conservatives want a nation guided by a Higher Power and timeless values.
Goldstategop seems to make perfect sense to me.
Whether or not being "gay" is a choice, is essentially a trick question. And, it's irrelevant. I think he, unlike most politicians, was honest in his response; that he didn't know.
Bush supports a Constitutional amendment defining marriage.
But, and rightly so, he leaves some power to the states.
And, as you see all the states with it on the ballot- passed laws/amendments against gay marriage.
But if the GOP simply becomes the "Evangelical Christian Party", you then lose colossal amounts of moderate votes, too. Let's not overestimate the power of the evangelicals in our party.
My reasons for being a proud and outspoken Republican have absolutely nothing to do with religion. Over 7,200,000 votes for Bush in CA and NY, don't forget.
I always thought the 1994 Newt Revolution was a fluke. I was wrong. It was the real beginning. Bill and Hillary were a blessing in disguise.
I'm don't entirely agree with this guy. Piles of dirt was slung by the likes of Moore and Moveon.org, and the democratic party. Then the media bias became so obvious, even the usually disinterested folks took notice, especially at Rather, who help the republican base.
The gay marriage issue brought a lot of conservatives out, but the war in Iraq was what really motivated the people. Even some who don't agree with the war have family members in the military and how could they, in good conscience, vote against them? That is what they would be doing had they voted for Kerry. The military overwhelmingly support Bush because they know he supports them. That alone, is worth a vote for President Bush.
I think it took a man of unquestionable character and integrity like Dubya to bring out the voters who were all but MIA in previous elections. We saw a comparison of what American SHOULD be and what America was about to become. The choice was more than clear and the people came through. Now we have to keep the fires burning for 2006 and 2008 and not fall back into apathy. IMHO
...or want to live in. Many have threatened to leave and I hope that they make good on their threats. They like appeasement policies, high taxes and big social programs? Fine. Let them go to countries that have them. Here's a plane ticket. Happy trails!
Most in the evangelical community believe homosexuality is a choice. My guess is if you put the President on a polygraph, it would indicate the same. His response was safe to the greater America and a wink and a nod to the base. Period
Bookmarked.If indeed bringing out the base is more electorally powerful than "running to the center," it might be that the MSM can be defeated far more quickly than I had hoped.
It might seem inobvious, but tax reform could be a powerful component of this approach because the only "principle" upon which churches are inhibited from political activisim is the IRS rule on deductability of contributions to churches. Switch to a sales tax or to a no-deductions flat tax, and the churches will be free to explictly advocate in the political arena.
So much for "seperation of church and state;" we will revert to respect for the First Amendment in which, at the ballot box, the churches influence the state with impunity.
OK, as long as "I hope not" is understood to refer only to the last sentence of the article rather than to the piece as a whole, we're all in agreement.
He made it clear that he would appoint strict Constitutionalists.
He left it up to the audience to put 2 and 2 together and realise that this naturally implies conservative candidates.
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