Feature Page: Bush Claims ‘Mandate’ in 2004 Election Victory

by Mark Ostapiak and Michael Schreiber

The capitalist ruling class won in November, as it does in all national elections. If John Kerry had beat George Bush, rather than vice versa, the interests of U.S. capitalism as against those of working people would still have been front and center in the White House.

Nevertheless, the vote totals indicate that a sizable percentage of the American people feel disdain for the retrograde policies and bullying manner of the Bush regime. Given the lack of a fighting leadership in the labor and social movements, and therefore without a viable electoral alternative, this sentiment was generally translated at the ballot box into a hesitant vote for the Democratic Party.

When Vice President Dick Cheney characterized Bush’s re-election as tantamount to “giving him a mandate,” he ignored the fact that some 70 percent of registered voters opposed Bush. Forty percent abstained from voting, while over 30 percent voted for Kerry or for socialist and other small-party candidates.

But with electoral support from merely 26 percent of the voting-age population, Bush still insists: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” His proposed agenda outlines the framework for bold attacks on working people and on democratic rights.

Stock prices rose sharply after Kerry conceded defeat. Before the election, of course, Wall Street gave lavishly to both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, as they do in every national election, knowing that they benefit no matter which party controls the White House.

As is the rule for capitalist candidates, both Kerry and Bush offered only vague promises about job creation, better health care, and better education. On two points, however, each candidate was clear: the war in Iraq and the phony war on terror would continue indefinitely.

To substitute for the fact that the candidates had no qualitative political differences on the issues, the capitalist media printed stories analyzing their facial expressions, body language, and perceived character traits, while speculating about their “vision,” “path,” “values,” and “character.”

Are working people moving to the right?

The media played up the fact that in one exit poll, 22 percent of respondents had affirmed that “values” were their most important concern—even ahead of issues like the Iraq war and jobs. Kerry’s aides, according to The Times, say they have accepted the belief that “the values problem took on enormous significance” in defeating the Democratic Party candidate at the polls. The exact meaning of “values” in this case is murky. But this new buzzword has been seized upon by ultra-conservatives (and parroted by the big business media) as evidence that the American people have moved decisively to the right. Accordingly, they are urging the Bush administration to carry out the reactionary policies that they allege the voting population has clamored for.

“Now that values voters have delivered for George Bush, he must deliver for voters,” said the Rev. D. James Kennedy, a broadcast evangelist in Florida. “The defense of innocent unborn human life, the protection of marriage, and the nomination and confirmation of judges who will interpret the Constitution, not make law from the bench, must be first priorities come January” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 7, 2004).

Have working people in the United States indeed moved to the right? It is true that 11 states saw victories for ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage. But this result took place in a highly charged atmosphere in which both Bush and Kerry and their respective parties refused to stand up for gay and lesbian rights. Supporters of same-sex marriage, on the other hand, had comparatively little space in the media to make their case.

Surveys have consistently shown that the majority of Americans continue to support a women’s right to choose abortion and are against any move to abolish or whittle down Roe v. Wade. Likewise, a sizable percentage (a majority, in some polls) is against the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and wants to see U.S. troops withdrawn.

The “architect” of Bush’s campaign, Karl Rove, apparently had some success in urging to the polls nearly 4 million evangelical Christians who had stayed home in the 2000 presidential election. Yet would be a mistake to think that evangelicals are uniformly reactionary, even if the great majority of them did cast their vote for Bush.

A survey compiled by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last spring showed that 55 percent of evangelicals favor strict environmental regulations, and 45 percent think that gay people should have the same civil rights as others.

The Kerry campaign focused on other groups, including Blacks, organized labor, and youth. Sean “Puffy” Combs urged young people to “Vote or Die.” Yet young voters did not materialize at the polls as hoped. They amounted to 17 percent of voters this year, compared to about 15 percent in the last election — suggesting that many young people were skeptical about casting their vote for either of the look-alike major candidates.

Bush garnered 286 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win, compared to Kerry’s 252. A 3.6 million margin of victory among the popular votes seemed to leave no doubt that Bush had won, and Kerry conceded defeat. Increasing evidence has come in after the election, however, concerning discrepancies in the vote count. In one precinct of Franklin County, Ohio, for example, Bush was recorded as having received nearly 3900 votes more than the total votes cast for all candidates. Some states retain undemocratic and racist laws that act to disenfranchise blocs of voters—particularly Black people. Thus, 14 states bar nearly 5 million former felons from voting, the majority of whom are Black.

Denial of the democratic right to vote in the 2004 election was certainly no aberration within the capitalist-run electoral process, and Democrats were hardly opposed to such maneuvers—which included their spending millions in court to keep independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader off the ballot. The system is rigged at the outset, thus limiting the issues and candidacies to individuals that represent boss-class interests.

Crisis of leadership

When Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry threw in the towel, it renewed prospects for progressive social movements whose forces had been held hostage for nearly nine months, during which time most campaigned for the Democrats and a few for the Greens.

In every presidential election there is a chance for leaders to educate people about the issues that really matter: health care, jobs, wages, unemployment, strong unions, war—and the list goes on. However, the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the antiwar, feminist, and Black liberation movements backed off from this important responsibility.

These leaders refrained from honest criticism of the twin-capitalist-party system, downplayed mass action, and again asked their members and followers to put their faith in the Democratic Party. Even noted intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn were sucked into the “Anybody But Bush” brigade.

The Democrats’ consistent anti-labor position never bothered AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer John Sweeny, who, according to a recent PAI report, said, “we have to do more,” to help the Democrats win next time.

That the AFL-CIO and the SEIU squandered, respectively, $45 million and $65 million from union treasuries to fuel the Kerry campaign shows that the present labor leadership does not represent workers’ interests. What’s necessary is a militant labor leadership that can empower the ranks to fight the boss class both in the economic and the electoral arenas, instead of voting for them.

With the election charade now behind us, the movement for social progress must refocus its energy on reaching out to the American people through mass action. International ANSWER has called for demonstrations against the Iraq war to take place in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Duluth and other cities on Jan. 20. Independent mass action is the way to demonstrate that Bush has no “mandate” for the war. All out!