Bush won the popular vote with a 3% margin and narrowly avoided getting the decision thrown into the House of Representatives. Regardless of the fact that Republicans control the House, such a scenario would be a nightmare for otherwise anonymous Representatives because of the unbridled media circus that would ensue.
The electronic voting problems were reason enough to fight but Kerry chose not to rip the country apart like Al Gore did in 2000. Bush won because Kerry had the kind of class that hasn't been shown since Nixon lost to Kennedy. That election could have gone ugly in the aftermath but Nixon put the country ahead of his ego.
In the wake of Kerry's selfless withdrawal from a fight that Republicans would _certainly_ fight in a reversed situation, Bush and the neocon mandarins apparently aren't satisfied with a simple win. They need to talk about their alleged mandate and brag about all the “political” capital they have. The neoconservative movement will now force men to be free with their war on dissent, the war on weekly fictional terrorists, tax cuts for “The Base”, the construction of 1000 nuclear reactors, the resurrection of the coal industry, the search for WMD, the backdoor draft, increased lodging at the Guantanamo Hilton, malpractice award limits and the effective elimination of social security.
In short, more spending like a drunken liberal with an actual mandate. Beyond the spending, Bush will add at least two justices to the Supreme Court in the next four years.
Bush portrays himself as a man of conviction. I'm inclined to believe him but I'm also inclined to believe that he is not in charge. Bush was a figurehead for the Texas Rangers. Bush was a figurehead for the state of Texas. Bush is a figurehead for the neoconservative ideologues in his administration. There is hope, however.
First term president are beholden to the people that put them there. A second term president can tell a lot of formerly indispensable people to fsck off. A second term president is the most powerful figure in American politics. While Bush essentially sold his soul to the social conservatives so he could ascend to the presidency, that contract is effectively null and void. Bush is now a free agent. If he reveals a surprising progressive move on a particular issue, nobody can do anything about it.
Neoconservatism is a selfish, greedy, atavistic and myopic philosophy. Neoconservatives are as fit for governing as the KKK. Social conservatives, or “religious” conservatives, have their own set of problems. They are not true conservatives because they never acknowledge the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are not true conservatives because they want government to enforce their Dark Ages nonsense. Their entire philosophy of social conservatives begins and ends with the uterus. With a bizarre vision of society and contempt for individual liberty, it can be safely said that, like their Islamic fundamentalist friends, social conservatives do not have ideas on advancing civilization, they have ideas on destroying it.
Bush and the Republican Party needs to seize the opportunity to return the neocons to the fringe and the social conservatives to the woods.
There are plenty of issues that only Bush can solve. Ending government waste should be the first priority. If any mandate exists, it is for the Republican Party to return the Line Item Veto to the president. The best years in this country were when Clinton could kill off congressional pork projects without killing entire bills. Pork is corruption. Nobody in this country will ever say, “Yeah, I pay taxes so the Congress can reward their donors.” If the next four years will be marked by conservative policies, those policies should be intellectually honest. The line item veto is the most powerful agent of efficient government. I'll do my part to put six more Republican senators in the legislative branch if it means the return of this tool to the Oval Office.
The second priority should be to either get the hell out of Iraq or run the war like a war. Running a war the right way means (1) kill all the men, (2) rape all the women and (3) reeducate the children. That's the only way wars are won. That's the only way cultures change. That's the only way Iraq can turn into a democracy in under 500 years. If they find the balls to follow that recipe and level the country, the war will be over within a year. Democracy will rise with 10 million Iraqi-American babies. If that recipe is too extreme for this administration then they are not prepared to carry out their objectives and they should leave Iraq.
The third priority should be to knock it off with depriving Americans of their right to exist. This means closing the holes that allow corporations to make India a better place to work and live. This means avoiding social issues, such as gay marriage, like the plague. This means reversing course and allowing stem cell research in government laboratories so basic research can accelerate the possibility of a society without disability. Finally, it means fostering policies that create a flourishing _energy_ industry rather than an _oil_ industry.
Fourth, and last for the moment, the government needs greater transparency. Americans own their Republic but they do not own the source code to their voting machines. This is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. There are tens of thousands of American programmers with the ability to write a bulletproof voting system. American hardware companies such as IBM have decades of experience in bulletproof equipment. This is not the place to get into a detailed technical breakdown of the current electronic voting system but suffice it to say that the system _begs_ for tampering and corruption.
Intellectually honest conservative policies will move legions of self-described “conservative Democrats” and libertarians to the Republican Party. These people don't like to be isolated or alienated from the two-party system but they can't handle neoconservative myopia or social conservative intolerance. I look forward to watching Bush's second term. If Bush produces a genuine “old right” conservative government, I'll be the first one to fight the Presidential Term Limit Amendment so he can run again.
Right now, however, I still don't trust him and I'm still a libertarian. That's a small L in case you didn't notice.
