This one hurts big. But progressives have little time for grief or recrimination. George W. Bush claims a mandate for his radical domestic agenda and for his preemptive foreign policy. The dollar has already begun to fall and interest rates to rise. The evangelical right is clamoring for advancing the jihad against gays and choice. The corporate lobby is salivating at the coming feeding frenzy. Democrats, particularly those in red states, are shaken and ready to retreat. Progressives had better take a clear look at what happened and get ready to fight.
Karl Rove and the Republican chorus are claiming that Bush won this election with his vision and positive agenda. Bull -- Bush won by waging the election we witnessed. The voters who returned Bush to office by a narrow margin are not enamored of his record or his policies. An election-day poll sponsored by the Institute for America’s Future and undertaken by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research showed that a broad majority of the voters that returned Bush to office were looking for a change. By 51 percent to 41 percent, they thought America was substantially on the wrong track. By 49 percent to 45 percent, they thought the war in Iraq was making us less safe.
On issue after issue, they were closer to progressives than to Bush. …
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