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WHITE CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES CARRY ELECTION FOR BUSH But Will He Get Their Message?

Thread ID: 16438 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2005-01-26

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Faust [OP]

2005-01-26 05:24 | User Profile

WHITE CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES CARRY ELECTION FOR BUSH

But Will He Get Their Message?

By Samuel Francis

Editor in Chief

 On November 2, President George W. Bush won a narrow re-election victory over liberal Democrat Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, taking 51 percent of the popular vote and only 286 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Despite winning with the support of most white Christian conservatives, however, Bush immediately moved to distance himself and his administration from the legislative agenda his conservative base supports.



 The election of 2004 was one of the closest in recent American history, with major pollsters and news organizations confessing, even on Election Day, that they were unable to predict who the winner would be. Although President Bush was the incumbent and a wartime president, he failed to win anything close to the landslide victories of his Republican predecessors like Richard Nixon in 1972 (61 percent of the popular vote) and Ronald Reagan in 1984 ((59 percent), both of whom were also running against liberal opponents (George McGovern and Walter Mondale respectively) in what was virtually wartime.



 The real victory of the 2004 election, however, was not won by the president, but by what the media immediately dubbed “the moral issue” -- causes relating to the moral direction of the country and the cultural definition of American society.



 The main such “moral issue” of course was so-called “gay marriage,” as homosexual relationships are now labeled, and the consensus was to reject this concept emphatically. No fewer than 11 states held referenda on ballot measures that defined marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman or explicitly outlawed homosexual “marriage.” Every one of these ballot measures won, often by margins exceeding that of the president.



 Exit polls showed that for a sizeable minority of voters, the “moral issue,” meaning not just the issue of homosexuality but also several related issues such as display of the Ten Commandments, public affirmations of religious belief, and similar cultural issues, were important driving forces in the election.



 Liberals were in despair over the results, and news articles soon appeared discussing how states that had voted for Sen. Kerry and against the “moral issue” were considering secession. Other articles discussed how many Kerry supporters were talking about fleeing to Canada in the wake of the election.



 Exit polls, though sometimes flawed (as when they reported on election day that Kerry was leading in the vote), revealed major patterns that began to emerge among voters.



 Thus, President Bush carried the white vote, despite massive efforts of the White House, the Republican National Committee, and other Republican groups to emphasize their “outreach” to black and Hispanic voters. Bush won 62 percent of white men and 55 percent of white women -- a modest improvement over what he won in these categories in 2000 (60 percent and 49 percent respectively).



 Bush therefore won 58.5 percent of the total white vote -- still considerably less than the 67 percent that Nixon won in 1972 or the 64 percent Reagan won in 1984.



 Among blacks, while Bush performed miserably in 2000, winning only 9 percent of the black vote (the lowest won by a Republican presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater won only 6 percent in 1964), in 2004 he won 11 percent -- also a modest improvement, but not a significant gain, especially considering the deliberate “outreach” (pandering) in which the campaign engaged.

Among Hispanics, however, Bush is reported to have won 44 percent of the vote, an increase of some 9 percent over what he won in this category in 2000. There are strong reasons for doubting that this particular category is accurate, however.

Bush also won the support of 84 percent of voters identifying themselves as conservatives. Here again, the exit polls showed a modest gain from 2000, when only 81 percent of self-identified conservatives voted for him.

This year “third party candidates” like Michael Peroutka (Constitution Party) and the Libertarians and Ralph Nader on the left did poorly, as did Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan and Constitution Party nominee Howard Phillips in 2000. In 2004, all the “third party” candidates together failed to win more than one percent of the popular vote.

While immigration was not a major issue in the presidential campaign and was mentioned only once during the election, when it was brought up briefly in the third presidential debate, immigration-related issues confirmed that immigration remains a major subject on the minds of voters -- and that most Americans want less of it.

Thus, in Arizona, a ballot measure known as “Proposition 200,” which requires applicants for public benefits to prove their legal eligibility for them and for prospective voters to prove they are legally entitled to vote, passed overwhelmingly.

Prop 200 was aimed at stopping illegal aliens in the state from getting onto the welfare rolls and from voting illegally. Despite its massive support at the grassroots level, the political establishment in the state bitterly opposed it -- both Republican senators (John McCain and John Kyl), the governor (a Democrat), every member of the state’s congressional delegation, and the state Chamber of Commerce.

Arizona has been affected by the impact of illegal immigration more than most states. More than 40 percent of illegal aliens entering this country are reported to enter through Arizona, and for years they have endangered the safety of local citizens and damaged private property, ranches, homes, and public areas near the state’s borders with Mexico. Despite this crisis, the state’s political elites refuse to do anything to control their own borders, and the federal government is also useless.

The popularity of Prop 200 therefore represents a victory of immigration control forces. It is noteworthy that Dr. Virginia Abernethy, a member of the Citizens Informer editorial advisory board, played a major role in working for Prop 200.

While neo-conservatives tried to claim the election was a “mandate” for Bush’s war in Iraq, there was little evidence to support that view.

Most voters who supported Bush did express approval of his decision to make war on Iraq, but only 26 percent of Bush voters said that Iraq was the most important issue for them. By contrast, 80 percent of Bush voters said “moral values” were the most important issue.

Neo-conservative David Brooks, writing in the New York Times shortly after the election, tried to argue that moral issues were less important than support for Bush’s foreign policy, but the exit polls do not substantiate this theory.

Moreover, Bush won 59 percent of the Protestant vote and 52 percent of the Catholic vote (but only 25 percent of the Jewish vote, despite his strongly pro-Israeli foreign policy).

The more voters attended Christian churches, the more likely they were to support Bush.

Thus, 64 percent of Bush supporters said they attended church more than once weekly, while 58 percent said they attended at least once weekly.

The overwhelming pattern that emerged from the election therefore is that white Christian Americans supported Bush and the conservative “moral values” they believed he represented, while rejecting John Kerry and the liberalism he was perceived as supporting.

Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

Nevertheless, almost immediately, Bush moved toward distancing himself and his administration from the moral consensus his supporters expressed.

Within a week of the election, and despite the results of the Arizona ballot measure, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced in Mexico that the administration would revive its flawed “temporary workers visa program” that the president had unveiled in January of 2004.

The visa program is in fact an amnesty program for illegal aliens, despite Bush’s denials. When he first proposed it, it proved to be so unpopular even in the Republican controlled Congress that the administration had to abandon it.

As Powell acknowledged, once the election was over, the administration could now revive the flawed plan.

“In light of the campaign and other things that were going on, we weren’t able to engage the Congress on it,” Powell said. “But now that the election is behind us and the president is looking to his second term, the president intends to engage Congress on it.”

In other words, the administration wasn’t able to get this plan through before the election, but now it thinks it can, because the politicians won’t have to face the voters.

On the same day that Powell made this announcement, Bush was meeting in the White House with pro-immigration Sen. John McCain, who had opposed his state’s Proposition 200, to discuss “immigration reform.”

Shortly afterward, in a news conference in Santiago, Chile, where Bush was attending a summit meeting of foreign officials, he confirmed that he would support his amnesty plan for illegal immigrants.

Leading congressional opponents of more liberal immigration policies expressed opposition to the president’s plan.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who is the major critic of mass immigration in Congress and who won re-election with 60 percent of the vote, warned the White House that the president’s amnesty plan was “dead on arrival” in Congress.

Rep. Elton Gallegly of California, who chairs an important subcommittee on terrorism of the House International Relations Committee, urged the president not to re-introduce his immigration plan.

“It is our hope that in future discussions with the Mexican government, you will encourage Mexico to do its part to address illegal immigration rather than encourage their citizens too illegally enter the U.S.” Rep. Gallegly wrote in a letter to President Bush. No fewer than 21 other members of Congress also signed the letter, including Rep. Tancredo.

Liberals on Supreme Court?

Yet another move by the administration in a direction opposite from that in which the election pointed was his appointment of his crony from Texas, Hispanic Alberto Gonzales, as Attorney General to succeed outgoing John Ashcroft.

While some conservatives expressed relief that Gonzales would not be named to the Supreme Court, his control of the Justice Department as Attorney General may be even more ominous because he will be in a position to control future Supreme Court appointments.

Gonzales is known to have ruled against a Texas law requiring parental notification for abortions while sitting on the Texas Supreme Court (as Bush’s appointee when governor) and is also known to have weakened the Bush administration’s brief against affirmative action in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision of the U.S. Supreme Court involving the University of Michigan law school’s affirmative action policies.

While conservatives in the Ashcroft Justice Department wanted to file a brief against all government discrimination on the basis of race, Gonzales won the day for filing a brief that argued that racial discrimination (against whites) is permissible when the goal is “diversity.” Gonzales therefore can be expected to support “moderate” to liberal nominees for the expected vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gonzales is also associated with the militantly pro-immigration group the National Council of La Raza (“The Race”), an anti-white Hispanic racist organization. La Raza expressed it’s support for Gonzales’ confirmation. In a press release issued soon after Gonzales’ appointment, La Raza’s Executive Director Janet Murguia stated, “"Alberto Gonzales served with distinction on the board of directors of one of NCLR's oldest and most respected affiliates, the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AMA) in Houston, Texas. Moreover, during his tenure as White House Counsel, he has been one of the most accessible members of the White House staff to NCLR and other Hispanic organizations."

A similar leftward can be expected from Sen. Arlen Specter, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which confirms Supreme Court nominees. Specter, a longtime liberal Republican, opposed Reagan nominee Robert Bork and was the deciding vote on the committee against him.

Shortly after the election Specter excited controversy by saying he would work against nominees who might challenge liberal court rulings, including Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that declares all state laws against abortion unconstitutional. That remark led many evangelical conservatives to challenge his becoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

But only days afterward Bush’s political advisor Karl Rove said publicly that he believed Specter would be confirmed. That was taken as a signal from the Bush White House that it wanted Specter as the committee chairman.

In fact, during the campaign Bush himself endorsed Specter and campaigned for him in Pennsylvania against a conservative challenger in the Republican primary, Rep. Pat Toomey. By late November, Specter had secured enough votes to ensure his election as committee chairman.

Yet another sign that the administration was moving away from the conservative direction toward which the election pointed was the appointment of Ken Mehlman, Bush’s campaign manager, as chairman of the Republican National Committee. While the appointment made sense because of Mehlman’s success in running the Bush campaign, the Washington Post reported that Mehlman “said his main goal will be to strengthen the majority party status of the GOP, reaching out to women, minorities and Jewish voters.”

What that means is that the leadership of the Republican Party, including President Bush and his new appointee at the RNC, still have not learned the major lesson of the 2004 election -- that Republicans do not win elections because of “outreach” to “women, minorities and Jewish voters,” let alone because of adopting liberal policies like amnesty for illegal aliens and support for affirmative action but because of the white, Christian conservative voters who remain the central core of the Republican voting base, who have twice sent George W. Bush to the White House, and who in this last election massively rejected liberalism and the moral degeneracy of homosexual “marriage.” If President Bush wishes the Republican Party to prosper in coming elections, this is a lesson he and all other Republicans should never forget.

[url]http://www.cofcc.org/citizensinformer/elections.htm[/url]

jay

2005-01-27 03:10 | User Profile

I know that newbies will learn from this. But to me, this is old news. It's interesting reading Francis as a "converted choirboy", rather than the newbie I was back in 2000.

Anyone with a heartbeat knows that only white males vote GOP (as a majority) The rest? Despise the GOP passionately.