Why Bush Won
Why Did Bush Win??
By Daniel G. Jennings
As the dust settles from the election we hear people asking why did Mr. Bush win? The answer to this question is obvious because the Bush team ran a great perhaps brilliant campaign and the Kerry team didn't.
Both campaigns did a great job of mobilizing voters but they did it in very different ways. The Democrats conducted a very noisy, very visible and rather disorganized grass roots campaign. The Republicans launched a stealth effort, moving quietly and cautiously behind the doors of churches and homes.
The Democratic effort backfired because it was public and noisy it invited attacks and criticism. Every noisy Democrat on the street corner, phone caller and obnoxious kid banging on doors was an advertisement for Bush. Every time they went out into the streets the Kerry volunteers energized both their base and the Republican base. The Kerry campaign circus with it's Hollywood stars, embrace of the peace movement, rock singers and Northeastern slant certainly mobilized conservatives. The constant stream of pro Kerry ads from left wing groups undoubtedly helped Bush. The arrogant holier than thou, we're smarter than you, tone of the Kerry campaign came through.
Kerry's very public campaign made very big target for Republicans, the pundits left and right and the various stand up comics and TV funnymen to shoot at. The Republicans could counter every move he made it because it was public and easy to examine.
This led to plenty of hysteria about the far left on the march and Kerry's left wing agenda as the noisy radicals mobilized. Naturally, this drove Americans who were uncomfortable with the direction of the Kerry campaign to the voting both in droves.
Bush or more precisely Karl Rove had a more brilliant strategy, they conducted a very quiet behind the scenes campaign. Instead of noisy radicals on the street corners, they had unobtrusive volunteers quietly signing up like minded people up in the privacy of their own homes. No publicity, no hysteria about the religious right on the rise, no Democratic backlash or reaction.
The Democrats and most political observers didn't realize what was happening until election day. It was the neatest political surprise and the boldest campaign move that I've ever seen and it worked. The army of volunteers quietly and centrally directed from the White House did their job and did it well. They mobilized a legion of new conservative voters beneath the radar.
The question is can this feat be duplicated? Probably not, surprise tactics can only work once. Next time the Democrats will be ready for this kind of attack and Rove or whoever takes his place may have to pull another rabbit out of the hat.
How does this change the political landscape? Well, first television advertising seems to have been dethroned from its central role as the key element in American politics. The Democrats and their allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on thousands of hours of advertising and it didn't seem to matter. Perhaps people have been so exposed to advertising that it no longer has any real effect, or maybe people are using remote controls, Tivo and other gadgets to zap out the commercials. Of course with hundreds of channels of television, many of them commercial free it's almost impossible to get a commercial before the majority of the voters any more.
So what will take TV's place? I really don't know, the Internet or talk radio might but it's difficult to judge their impact. More likely well organized get out the vote efforts like this year's will become the focus of future campaigns.
Organizing the voters and using them in the smartest way is the reason Bush won. It is also going to be the key factor in future political campaigns in this country.