History in the Making

Kerry supporters will often point out that Bush only won 51% of the popular vote in the 2004 election, hardly a mandate. I've said that myself. While it is a true statement, it glosses over some very ominous trends in the election that the Democrats ignore at their peril. Mary Matalin said on Meet the Press

But there's also a generational thing going on here as well. It started about in the '60s but accelerating in the '80s when I came to town with President Reagan, the Democrats controlled every level of government and now the Republicans control the Senate, the House, the governors, and most importantly the legislative chambers. It's 50-50 now, which is the bench. And in the Democratic Senate chamber, 15 of the--a third of the Democratic senators are from red states. So those people--Bush increased his margins in the red states. He also increased his margins exponentially in the blue states, in New York, in Massachusetts, in New Jersey, in Rhode Island, in Hawaii, in Connecticut.

So I think he ran on an agenda, he increased his margins everywhere with every--almost every demographic in particular for the future, Hispanics and the black vote, women, seniors, across the board. So that is pretty much grounds for a mandate, and we're predicting some progress on that agenda.

The Republicans have won an historic victory. The party has more power now than it has had in my lifetime. One would have to go back to the 50's or perhaps even the 20's to find the party with such a grip on government. Reagan, at his most popular, had to work with a Congress controlled in both houses by the Democrats. The best he could muster was a short period of weak Republican control of the Senate. When Reagan came to the White House, he had to contend with a Supreme Court largely the same as that which decided Roe vs. Wade. After the 2004 election, the Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress (and with fairly strong majorities in both, large enough that it will take several election cycles to erase the deficit), the Supreme Court, plus a majority of state governorships and legislatures. James Carville puts it, "Now, we don't control any branch of government. We've lost three out of 10, or if you want to call it count the tie in 2000, that's fine, too. I mean, we've won three out of the last 10 presidential elections."

In achieving this historic victory, the Republicans have made inroads in several seemingly solid Democratic bases, e.g. the black and Latino vote. Bush gained his share of the popular vote relative to 2000 in just about every state, even where he lost; where he won in 2000, he won by a larger margin in 2004, where he lost in 2000, he lost by a smaller margin in 2004. (Check out, for example, The Galvin Opinion's tally of the vote in New York City and suburbs in 2000 and 2004. Bush gained almost 150,000 votes in the city and Kerry lost 50,000 from Gore's 2000 tally.) Matalin also points out that a sizable chunk of what remains of the Democratic contingent in the Senate are Senators from red states, which spells trouble in future election cycles.

Democrats cannot content themselves with having almost won the presidency in 2004. The trends are going against them. After 2 victories, they lost narrowly in 2000 and more convincingly in 2004. The party needs a major reform of its approach and philosophy if they are to reverse these trends.