[jyl]

The Reps who crow that "America soundly rejected the Dems" are making too much of a narrow victory.

Incumbent Presidents usually crush their opponents, rather than winning by a nose. Here's the history as far back as I have it - the first number is the winner's popular vote percentage advantage, the second number is the percentage of electoral college votes that the winner got:

2004 Bush d Kerry 3.0% 54%
1996 Clinton d Dole 8.5% 70%
1984 Reagan d Mondale 18.3% 97%
1972 Nixon d McGovern 23.0% 96%
1964 Johnson d Goldwater 22.1% 90%
1956 Eisenhower d Stevenson 16.0% 85%
1948 Truman d Dewey 4.7% 57%
1944 Roosevelt d Dewey 7.5% 81%

In the end, Bush just squeaked out this win. By one state and 140,000 votes. His (incredibly skilled) political advisers may have spun this as a "broad victory", but that is not what the numbers say.

He ran a brilliant campaign, laser-focused on his core voter base, coordinating with the "ban gay marriage" propositions in key states. The Reps and their ideological allies did a great job of negative smear campaigning, although this time the Dems were just as good - no white hats worn on either side. And even though the twin wars (terror and Iraq) were a weakness for Bush, they were also an asset, because Americans tend to rally around the President in wartime. (Can you name an incumbent President who was denied re-election during a significant war?)

Kerry fought it down to the wire, and did about as well as he could have, given the weaknesses of his background (a senator, from the liberal Northeast, war protestor) and his personal style (long-winded, wooden, patrician). The Democrats as a party ran the best campaign I've seen them do in a long time, in terms of money raised, grassroots involvement, voter turnout, quick-reaction spin war, etc). Six months ago, I didn't think Kerry had much of a chance; by the day of the election, the strong Dem campaign had pulled Kerry to nearly a 50-50 chance.

So, Kerry came close, closer than any challenger to an incumbent President in the past several decades, but in the end Bush hung on to his job.

Dems, it's not the end of the world, but a hopeful sign for 2008. If the Dem party can do as good a job campaigning in 2008, with a stronger candidate and without war and incumbency helping the Reps, the Dem party has a good chance at the White House. The close race of 2004 shows there is a realistic way for a Dem candidate to take the White House without winning a single Southern state.

Reps, it's not the keys to Heaven, but an opportunity. The party has four years with total control of government, total responsibility for the results, and a huge political debt to its most conservative elements. If the actions are wise and the results good, and the party can restrain its extreme conservatives, then the Rep party will deserve another 4 or 8 years.