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7. The Culminating Point: Democrats versus Republicans in the Bush Years
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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110 o n the afternoon of November 2, 2004, Democrats thought that vindication was in their grasp. Two years earlier, the terrorism issue allowed President George W. Bush’s party to pull off the remarkable feat of gaining seats in a midterm election. And for a while in 2003, it had seemed as if the military defeat of Saddam Hussein would ensure reelection victory for Bush. But on election day 2004, the Internet was abuzz with leaked exit poll numbers showing that Senator John Kerry would win. As the votes mounted, though, it became clear that the early numbers were wrong. Democrats’ joy turned into shock. Not only had their despised foe won a second term, but his party had gained even more seats in the House and Senate. Mental health professionals soon reported that some Democrats were feeling traumatized. “Patients who I’ve had for a long time have come in absolutely devastated over the fact that the election went the way it did,” said a clinical social worker in Madison, Wisconsin. “They were just terribly distraught and continue to be terribly distraught” (from Derby 2004). Some academics worried that the Republican hold on power threatened thE cULmintinG Point Democrats versus repubicans in the bush years john j. pitney jr. 7 111 the culMinating point democracy itself (Hacker and Pierson 2005b). The 2005 annual conference of the American Political Science Association actually included a panel titled “Is It Time to Call It Fascism?” Two years later, Bush’s popularity was near Nixonian lows. In November 2006, Democrats won majorities in the House and Senate, and two years later they reclaimed the White House as well. In hindsight, it is clear that the 2004 election was not the start of permanent GOP dominance, much less a partisan dictatorship. What happened? A Marine Corps handbook explains that every conflict has a culminating point: “We advance at a cost—lives, fuel, ammunition , physical and sometimes moral strength—and so the attack becomes weaker over time. Eventually the superiority that allowed us to attack and forced our enemy to defend in the first place dissipates and the balance tips in favor of our enemy” (U.S. Marine Corps 1994, 33). Something comparable happened in the party warfare of the second Bush term. Republicans reached this culminating point, and their advance turned into retreat. In the 2002 midterm, the Republicans had achieved unified party control of the federal government, and they strengthened it in 2004. That goal had eluded them for nearly half a century, apart from a few months in 2001. Unified control has obvious advantages, such as the ability to move legislation and attract campaign funds. Less obvious are its hazards . Power invites abuse and complacency; the moral strength that led to victory may give way to the temptation to disregard ethics. And unified control means unified responsibility. When things go wrong, the party in power gets all the blame. Another military analogy is useful here. In the nineteenth-century classic On War, Carl von Clausewitz described how things can go wrong: “Friction can arise both from minor mishaps and great disasters.” Every war, he wrote, “is rich in unique episodes. Each is an uncharted sea, full of reefs” (Clausewitz 1976, 119, 120). During the second Bush term, the Republican battleship hit several reefs. The Paper Elephant The reversal of fortune during Bush’s second term seemed so dramatic in part because many observers had overrated Bush and the national GOP. Republicans did have real strengths, yet they lacked the demonic powers that critics attributed to them. Robert Jervis put it well: “Domestic groups in conflict see the other side as more unified than it is. In local labor- [44.200.23.133] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:04 GMT) 112 john j. pitney jr. management disputes each side is apt to believe incorrectly that the other is controlled from above. Both Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives see the other party as the one that is more organized and disciplined” (Jervis 1976, 327). A Hill Divided As the Jervis passage suggests, Capitol Hill is a good place to start a search for what went wrong. A common assumption has long held that congressional Republicans are inherently more unified than Democrats. At first, Congressional Quarterly’s party unity scores seem to reinforce the image of a GOP monolith. Between 2001 and 2006, the House Republicans always averaged a unity score of at least 92 percent. Their Senate colleagues...