At this point in time, we’re on the cusp of four more years of the Bush presidency. In addition, the Republicans got the votes to control both the House and the Senate, just like they did in 2002 (even though the Congress usually shifts the other way after a new President is elected). Florida looks like it’s not even close, and even Ohio seems to have a comfortable margin.
The most common responses I’ve heard from my liberal friends run somewhere along the lines of, “I don’t understand how this could happen!” “I can’t believe that half of the country thinks like you do!” They are just shocked and amazed, because it seems so obvious to them what a horrible person George W. Bush is, and they have no idea how he could possible get reelected (or, indeed, have gotten elected in the first place).
Now, let’s examine what we’ve gone through in the last four years: “Selected Not Elected”; “Like Father, Like Son, One Term, and Then You’re Done”; Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Oscars; weapons of mass destruction; manufactured evidence against Bush; an inherited recession, followed by the largest domestic terrorist attack in American history; performances in three debates that were at the very least underwhelming; and 11th-hour fears about missing weapons in Iraq.
Yet, with all that, Bush still looks like he’s going to win this election. And that’s not even considering the events of the 2000 election, where you had Bush running against the incumbent Vice President, coming off of eight years of a successful, highly popular President, along with the greatest period of economic growth in recent memory. And even with all that, Bush still managed to squeak out a win, when it shouldn’t have even been close.
So for my liberal friends: How you can explain that? Are that many people in the country that much stupider than you? Or maybe, just maybe, are you wrong about some very basic assumptions that you are making about the President?
Just something to think about.
