Why Bush won

There's a kind of train-wreck fascination in watching Democrats try to understand why the rubes in Middle America didn't vote for John Kerry. For every Democrat willing to criticize the campaign they ran and wonder how they can do better next time, there's a dozen whining about how America is full of stupid, homophobic, racist rednecks not enlightened enough to vote the correct way, and logging onto the Canadian government website to find out how they can emigrate.

(An aside: Kerry lost Ohio by less than 150,000 votes, and the margin in some other red states was even smaller. If a few hundred thousand Democrats moved to "purple" states like Ohio, Iowa or New Mexico, they could probably swing the 2008 election their way. But I guess it's easier to get good latte in Toronto than in Des Moines.)

David Brooks says it was actually moderate voters who swung the 2004 election to Bush, not just evangelicals:

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not.
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But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

Democratic pollster Mark Penn backs him up. Michael Coren, meanwhile, says "Middle America" was just sick of the chattering classes' condescension:

For months a daft coalition of the extremely willing played their guitars, sang their songs and read their Hollywood statements about Iraq, oil, the evil George Bush and the foolishness of the American people. They would deny, of course, that they accused their fellow Americans of being stupid, but this is precisely what they did.

True understanding and enlightenment, it seemed, only came after you'd appeared in a sequel to a superhero movie or seen your last album go platinum. Bruce Springsteen might claim to be an ordinary working man, but ordinary working men don't have bank accounts the size of Rhode Island.

The assembled pop stars and actors meant no harm when they demanded that Americans vote Democrat, but what they were really saying was that only certain people really get it. Michael Moore got it. Rosie O'Donnell got it. Academics at universities got it. Howard Stern got it.
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The clever people at the mainstream television networks, the stylish types in New York and Los Angeles, the icons of glamour and glitz all said that John Kerry was the only choice for a person with any intelligence. As for those ignorant evangelicals, those stupid church-going Catholics, those family-values fools, those dumb redneck hicks, they weren't real Americans.

Then, in the smiling twilight of the new political morning, the unwashed told their betters to shove it.

They realized that their kind were smart and sophisticated enough to storm the beaches of Normandy and wrestle Europe from the Nazis and Asia from the Japanese fascists. They realized that they were suave and urbane enough to work the farms, make the cars, drive the cabs, do the work.

Middle America experienced an epiphany. We are not bigots or yokels just because we believe in the family and in traditional virtues and values. We are not hateful merely because we support our troops and cry when we hear the national anthem.

Working-class Americans began to ask some questions. They wondered why wealthy, white entertainers, artists and, I'm sure, freelance manufacturers of organic yogurt, were announcing that they would leave the United States if George Bush won the election.

Imagine that. If democracy didn't provide the result they wanted, these selfish rich kids would run away to Canada or Britain.

Is that patriotism? Middle America didn't remember Republicans threatening to leave when Bill Clinton won a second term.

The way most Democrats have gotten on since election day, they can probably write off 2008, too.

Update: Andrew Coyne has been all over this point, as well.

Update II: Andrew Sullivan, who originally attributed Bush's victory to GOP gay-bashing, says Brooks is right.

Posted by damian at November 6, 2004 12:02 PM