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By Simon Marks, Channel NewsAsia
US Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON DC (Nov 6) - US President George
Bush locked himself inside the
White House on Wednesday. His aides insisted that the President
didn't
want to "gloat" over his Republican Party's stunning
performance in the
country's mid-term elections. But it's more likely that he
simply wanted a
little private time to contemplate his achievement.
At a stroke, a President widely derided in
capitals overseas for lacking
intellectual acuity, and widely accused here in the United
States of having
"stolen" the 2002 Presidential election, has suddenly
secured the mandate
he so desparately needed.
For the remaining two years of what he hopes
will be merely his first term
in office, the President can point to his personal role securing
the
Republicans' mid-term victory whenever his detractors attempt
to remind him
of the debacle in Florida in November 2000. For this White
House, that
mandate is gold dust. The bumper stickers that had begun to
appear over
the past few weeks encouraging voters to "Re-elect Gore/Lieberman
in 2004"
now appear old before their time.
Most importantly, President Bush has made history.
For the first time
since 1934, a sitting first-term President has watched his
party's
Congressional position improve in mid-term elections. Just
8 years ago,
Bill Clinton - reputed to be one of the sharpest political
operators
post-war America had seen - was forced to reassert his own
"relevance"
following a his party's drubbing at the polls. George Bush
has not only
seen his relevance reconfirmed, but now controls both ends
of Pennsylvania
Avenue and is poised to make significant legislative strides.
The Republicans' victory only tells part of
the story of this mid-term
election. The other, and perhaps bigger part of the equation
is the defeat
suffered by the Democrats.
In the 2000 Presidential campaign, Democrats
felt certain that 8 years of
Clintonian prosperity would propel Al Gore to the White House.
This time,
they were just as certain that Enron and the other corporate
scandals that
have swirled around the White House would equally play in
their favor. But
once again Democrat leaders proved incapable of influencing
the national
conversation or shaping the outcome of the campaign. The result:
the party
is rudderless and leaderless just two years before the next
Presidential
election.
Having savored his victory, George Bush can
be expected to advance his
plans to force Iraqi compliance with United Nations Security
Council
resolutions. If there was one national issue in the campaign
it was Iraq,
and despite rumours of the growth of the largest US anti-war
movement since
Vietnam, there's little evidence to suggest that an anti-war
message proved
popular at the polls.
But if Saddam Hussein should be observing the
US electoral process with
interest, so should George Bush's detractors across Asia and
western
Europe. Even before polls opened on Tuesday, a President commonly
regarded
as intellectually-challenged had already focussed the global
agenda on the
proposed strategy of US pre-emptive strikes against America's
enemies. Now
he's re-written the mid-term election history books as well.
President George Bush should never have
been under-estimated by those
overseas who find it easier to parody the US political process
rather than
understand it. Whatever you think of the President's policies,
it's time
to wake up to the political acumen of George W. Bush.
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