Posted by Bill Haenel on 22-Nov-04

Peggy & Friends

From OpinionJournal: "He's Got Two of 'Em"

Oh brother.

I am in disagreement with almost every opinion in this article, starting with the one about "healthy margin" and "the American people" having "judged him a better man". Sorry, I don't buy it. It wasn't "the American people". In fact, it was scarcely half.

It seems like every Conservative Republican in the nation is high with this idea of a "mandate" and a "majority". It's as though it was some kind of landslide or something. Thing is, it wasn't. Not at all. It was very, very close, and even now there is some question about e-voting accuracy and how unreported errors might have brought it even closer. I'm not sure what's scarier: the fact that our nation is now so evenly but vastly divided by our politics, or that one side (neo-conservatives) are so blind to exactly how evenly and vastly divided it is.

From CNN, here were the end results:

Bush
59,459,765 - 51% - 286

Kerry
55,949,407 - 48% - 252

Whoopie.

59.5M to 55.9M popular votes. If that's not close enough, look at the percentage...only 3% difference. And if that doesn't convince anyone, how 'bout 286 to 252 electoral votes?

Now, if that still doesn't seem pretty closely split, consider our history (beyond the 2000 election that is, since GW's win was 271 to 266 electoral votes, also very close, so we should look a little further)...

The electoral vote results in elections before Gore vs. Bush went like this:

1996
Clinton: 379
Dole: 159

1992
Clinton: 370
Bush: 168

1988
Bush: 426
Dukakis: 111

1984
Reagan: 525
Dole: 13

1980
Reagan: 489
Carter: 49

(source: PBS)

Now those were some electoral spreads! Now we're talking about a win! A majority! One might almost call it Near Unity!

So before everyone (Noonan) gets too giddy over a measly 3%, they ought to first do their homework, then take a look at our nation and what's going on. The economy is down, we're at war, we are socially inept as a group and we need some global allies who don't simultaneously accept our invitation to our party and then drink all our beer while talking badly about us behind our backs to our other "friends" who are doing the same.

We're in trouble, and it's not because half of us are immoral fools. It's because our enemies around the globe have divided us. "Divide et impera" is a strategy that will work against us if we don't stand up, accept and respect each others' beliefs, opinions and differences, and work together instead of treating each other like opponents.

And don't get me started on the soft-money tactics of the Club for Growth, or "a sneak and a liar", or any of the other stuff Ms. Noonan wrote.

My two cents, and I call myself somewhere between a Moderate Republican and a Conservative Democrat, just in case you were wondering.

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