Domestic Public Opinion against/for Bush's Policy

Profile:
Mr. David A.G. Johnson graduated from Columbia University, School of International Affairs. He worked for the Mayor's office of the City of New York. He was the staff of the Institute of International Education (IEE), placement specialist for Foreign Fullbright Program.
Then, he had been on the board of directors of the Schomburg Center. As the third career, he is currently a teacher of a high school in New York.

Virtual Guest Speeech 1 (00:00:00 - 00:04:15)
** It may take a few minutes for audio file download.

Presidential Election in 2004

Virtual Guest Speeech 2 (00:04:15 - 00:08:42)

Largest Victory since 1988
Bush won the election over 51 percent. That was the largest majority since his father won the election in 1988.

As the first step at this forum, I would like to focus on why Bush could collect so many votes.     We can pick up 2 significant reasons.

1. Well Organized Votes
His chief strategy Karl Rove who planned planned to register more people who will be called "get out of the vote". Actually, democrats had more people who voted. But, Republicans did so better than Democrats. Republicans organized much better than Democrats.
What Republicans did is that they focused their recruitment. And they targeted "Evangelicals" (very conservative church-going people). This action provides Republicans about 4 million votes.

2. Call Conservative Votes
Interest Groups
Not only those votes, this action brought Republicans another important effect of retargeting conservative white-American voters. There white-American voters were concerned with social issues. For example, same-sex marriage issue is one of such issues called "Popular social issues".
Republicans were very effective in focusing on such moral issues and in raising fears that same-sex marriage would change the fundamental foundation of American life.
Like western European countries, same-sex marriage is increasingly acceptable in the US. But what Bush have said is "We don't want to discriminate against any particular group, but we should draw a line when it comes to marriage.".
That was an issue that galvanized the America's base Bush was elected.

Virtual Guest Speeech 3 (00:08:42 - 00:12:43)

Blue Collar Votes
Among them, blue collar people who are at the bottom of the society are very conservative both in terms of social value and in terms of political view. They voted Bush's view because his view seemed to be better than that of Kerry.
Even though those people had not done well economically under George Bush, they voted George Bush. The reason why they did so was to vote against their interest group. They were not concerned about abortion as a major issue in the 2004 election.

Southern Votes
From geopolitical point of view, Bush collected votes effectively in southern part of the US. Traditionally, there are many conservative Republicans living in southern states. In those states, nearly four sevenths of the people are Republicans. In some key states such as Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Florida, the population of voters grew about 17%.

African American Votes
The interesting thing in this election was that those increased votes were not only white conservatives. Historically, most of African American are democrats, since the Democratic party has been interested in welfare of African American. Even with such historical background, Bush corrected more African American votes than ever before.

Virtual Guest Speeech 4 (00:12:43 - 00:16:17)

What Made Bush More Attractive

Thanks to those reasons above, he had collected many votes and won the election.
Now, we would like to think about the details of the aspects which made Bush more attractive than Kerry.

Cut from the Same Cloth
Both Bush and Kerry are what you call American elite. They graduated Ivy League Institutions, Yale and Harvard. And, they are distant relatives. In other words, they are so call "cut from the same cloth". Their positions are almost the same except for the difference Republicans or Democrats.
Here, we would like to consider the difference between those candidates, Bush and Kerry.

Define himself
It is very important for any politician to say who he is. However, Kerry could not define himself. On the other hand, Bush and his supporters painted Kerry as An American being NOT loyal.

Just Like An Ordinary Person
Bush is not intellectual, but he is smart politician. He projected himself as just like an ordinary person. He got an advantageous image which people feel affinity with. It is like,
"I am not smart. I went Yale, I did not well. But I can be the President. I could do it. So, you don't have to be smart."

This makes a huge difference between Bush's image and Kerry's image.

Virtual Guest Speeech 5 (00:16:17 - 00:19:29)

Strong Support
This difference of image made a significant difference of supporters' mentality between them.
Bush supporters supported Bush strongly. In one statistics, 86% of the people who voted for Bush voted for him very strongly.
On the other hand, most democrats I know say "I voted for Kerry because I don't like Bush.". What we can see this sentence is that they don't like Bush but they don't love Kerry actually. In other words, their votes are just anti-Bush vote. Finally, Kerry supporters helped Kerry to be defeated.

Virtual Guest Speeech 6 (00:19:29 - 00:24:16)

Virtual Guest Speeech 7 (00:24:16 - 00:28:21)

The War in Iraq

The War in Iraq was one of the key issues in 2004.
Now, I would like to focus on what is behind of this issue and how this issue affected the presidential election.

The Final Goal for The Bush Family
Since the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein had been an evil for Bush family. Saddam had a plan to kill the Bush Senior who was the President and who is the father of the President. Therefore, it was the final goal for the Bush Family to eliminate this evil.
In this sense, regime change in Iraq had already been a goal for George W Bush since even before 911.

"911"
Everyone remembers the event on September 11th, 2001. What was "911" for the President Bush?
It was an important opportunity for him to be able to rationalize the family's goal.
After 911, everyone in the world understands that terrorism is a global threat.

Orwellian
Saddam Hussein has nothing to do with 911. But, George Bush exploited 911 for the family's goal.

Virtual Guest Speeech 8 (00:28:21 - 00:32:56)

WMD in Iraq
Before the Iraq War, Bush administration had kept saying "Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass-Destruction (WMD). WMD is stored and hidden away somewhere in Iraq.", even though United Nations doesn't believe that.
United Nations send chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to Iraq for one month, to find WMD in Iraq. But his team could never find any WMD in Iraq. His final report said that there is no WMD in Iraq
Bush administration was very insulting to Hans Blix. They disregards Hans Blix's report by saying "He was a friend with Arab anyway. So, we can not trust him."
Besides him, Mohamed ElBaradei of IAEA(International Atomic Energy Agency) has the investigation result which shows that there is no NMD in Iraq. But, Bush administration ignored IAEA's investigation result also.

Virtual Guest Speeech 9 (00:32:56 - 00:36:06)

Change the role of UN
"I don't like the rule of the game. So, I changed the rule of the game."
This is what Bush had done for UN. Instead of believing UN, Bush administration launched their own team and to find in WMD in Iraq. And, by showing plausible fake evidence such as satellite picture, they insisted that WMD is there.
Then, finally instead of UN, he send his troops into Iraq for the cause of protecting peace from terrorist.

Virtual Guest Speeech 10 (00:36:06 - 00:40:32)

Virtual Guest Speeech 11 (00:40:32 - 00:45:19)

Fear of being Disloyal
We have a opposition party in the US. It is democrats. However, they could not dispute about this issue. Why? The answer is simple.
Democrats were afraid of being considered as disloyal or weak. At that time, evidence is limited. In such situation, Kerry could not throw out doubts on WMD issue, even taking a risk of being considered as disloyal.
Thus, based on those limited information, Kerry voted for the War in Iraq. And then, WMD was not found in Iraq finally.

Kerry should have said "I made a mistake".
They have voted for the war based on limited information. And then, they know the fact differently, Kerry and democrats should have said "I had a mistake". But they didn't do so.
Owing to this vague and unclear attitude, most people could not get any specific image of Kerry. Then, finally, Kerry could not gain many strong supporters in the election.

Virtual Guest Speeech 12 (00:45:19 - 00:49:55)

Important Lesson for Strong Leader
Through this experience, Bush has learned one important lesson. That is that it is better to stand for something, even if it were wrong, than to stand for nothing at all like Kerry. By seeing Bush stands for some solid value, voters viewed Bush as a strong reader with American value.

Virtual Guest Speeech 13 (00:49:55 - 00:54:36)

Virtual Guest Speeech 14 (00:54:36 - 00:58:44)

Virtual Guest Speeech 15 (00:58:44 - 01:03:09)

Virtual Guest Speeech 16 (01:03:09 - 01:05:29)