Bush's Legacy (11/8/04)

by Dean Hartwell

 

President Bush has said that he earned political capital from the recent election and that he intends to spend it.  However, given the closeness of his victory, the voters did not give him much capital.

 

Though not as close as the election of 2000, this election was one of the narrowest in recent history.  Bush’s margin of 34 electoral votes (286-252) and three percent of the popular vote over Kerry ranks as substantially less than either of President Clinton’s victories, for instance.  Clinton doubled the number of electoral votes of both of his nearest opponents and won the popular vote by five and eight percentage points, respectively.

 

Clinton could argue a limited mandate to pursue his tax plan and universal health care, given the size of his victories.  He had another reason for his mandate on these issues: third party candidate Ross Perot, who received 19 and 8 percent of the popular vote in Clinton’s elections, agreed with him.  President Bush, on the other hand, lacks this type of broad consensus on many issues.

 

The voters’ consensus in such a close race could be read as what the candidates could agree upon.  Here, Bush and Kerry did agree upon cutting taxes for the middle and lower classes, reducing the deficit and prosecuting the war in Iraq.

 

Bush should also respond to the voting results by re-arranging his cabinet.  The strong showing by Senator Kerry demands at least one prominent Democrat in a major cabinet position, much in the way President Clinton appointed former Republican Senator William Cohen to be Secretary of Defense.  Cabinet members who have not upheld the public’s confidence must go.

 

Here is how four key positions in the new cabinet should look:

 

OUT

All four of them have performed incompetently in their respective positions.  Powell lied to the United Nations and to the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Rumsfeld should be held accountable for military misconduct in Abu Gharib.  Ashcroft has trampled over constitutional rights, especially with his application of the Patriot Act.  Rice failed to imagine the possibility of terrorist hijackers taking over airplanes and crashing them into buildings despite warnings from other departments to that effect.

 

IN

These replacements better reflect the public’s wishes.  McCain has earned respect from both Republicans and Democrats for his honesty and integrity.  Clark is a Democrat who has shown he knows how to win a war (Kosovo).  Giuliani, while no civil libertarian, brings a sense of reasonableness on judicial matters that Ashcroft could only dream of.  And Republican Hagel has distinguished himself by his willingness to criticize the Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq war.

 

On other issues, such as changing the tax code, altering Social Security and selecting Supreme Court Justices, President Bush has earned no capital for radical changes.  He should work with Congress to find bipartisan consensus on these and other issues.  By doing so, he could earn the respect of people who did not vote for him, which would go down as his greatest legacy.

 

Archives