Election Defies History
By Paul M. Weyrich
November 8, 2004

So God is indeed a Republican. He must be. His hand helped re-elect a President, with a popular mandate, whose job approval ratings were the lowest since ratings began of any President who has been re-elected. His hand helped re-elect a President in a country where "wrong track" was way ahead of "right track". His hand helped re-elect a President in a country where, in the rust belt and the South, millions of jobs have been lost.

His hand helped keep the President from a lonely victory and helped provide four more conservative Senators; assisted in the defeat of the obstructionist Senate Minority Leader and even increased the number of Republicans in the House.

His hand brought out the millions of evangelical voters Karl Rove was looking for and lots of conservative Catholics to boot. His hand turned the bitter result of a Massachusetts court forcing gay marriage on the populace into a reason for values voters to turn out by the millions, especially in Ohio, which gave the President his Electoral College victory. His hand helped the President earn an outright majority of the electorate, with enough of a margin that the President can claim the wind at his back.

His hand helped the President win a majority of the electorate despite the most negative media coverage of a President in modern history. The media and Hollywood had an agenda: Defeat George W. Bush.

God may not be a Republican but he heard the fervent prayers of millions of values voters to keep His hand on America one more time despite our national sins of denying the right to life, despite ignoring the Biblical injunction against acts which are "an abomination unto the Lord" and despite the blatant attempt to remove God from the public square. God gave this President and this President's Party one more chance.

Will the President understand why he is still in office? Will Senators comprehend why the Republicans increased their majority? Will the Congress realize why the first sitting Senate leader was deposed since 1952 (when Barry Goldwater defeated the then Senate Majority Leader)? We shall see.

This President has defied history twice. In 2002 (the first off-year election of his Administration) Bush helped his Party increase its majority in the House and helped his Party go from minority to majority status in the Senate. That has not happened since the Great Depression when FDR increased his majorities in his first off-year election in 1934. This year President Bush defied history by being re-elected despite having more liabilities than almost any incumbent President in modern times. He is the only Republican President to be re-elected and carry with him a Republican Congress since Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Even Coolidge had not served an entire term by 1924. Coolidge took over the year before when President Warren Harding died. So to find a Republican President who was re-elected and carried with him a Republican Congress you would have to go way back to 1904 when Teddy Roosevelt did just that. But even then TR didn't quite serve out an entire term. He, like Coolidge, began the term as Vice President, in this case to William McKinley. However, TR served all but six months of McKinley's second term after McKinley was shot in Buffalo, New York on September 6th, 1901. So you would have to go back to the 1800s to find a Republican President who served out his first full term and then carried a Republican Congress with him. Talk about defying history.

The question is can Bush defy history in 2006? That is the year of the six-year itch. Throughout the last Century in the sixth year of an eight-year term the Party in power takes a really tough hit. Even the "he can do no wrong" FDR in 1938 lost 80 House seats and six Senate seats. In the sixth year of the FDR -Truman years in 1946 the Democrats lost 13 Senate seats and 56 House seats. In the sixth year of Ike's eight years in office Republicans lost 13 Senate seats and 49 House seats. In the sixth year of the eight years of Kennedy and Johnson, 1966, Republicans gained four Senate seats and 47 House seats. Ronald Reagan's sixth-year itch came in 1986. He lost control of the Senate with a shift of eight Seats to the Democrats and remarkably lost only five House seats. Bill Clinton defied history. His sixth-year itch came right before impeachment. He went out and campaigned on the issue that if he gained seats he could avoid being impeached. He blamed the "Republican attack machine" for his troubles. He turned out his vote. Republicans did not. The GOP remained unchanged in the Senate and Republicans lost four of eight seats in the House. Thus, Clinton became the only President in well more than a Century to actually gain seats in the sixth year of his Presidency. This may be because his Party got the hit in his first off - year election in 1994 when the GOP took control of both Houses of Congress for the first time since 1952.

It might be possible for Bush to defy history for a third time as follows: If he and his Republican Congress indeed reform the tax code; if they do make tax cuts permanent; if they do reform Social Security creating personal accounts for young people entering the system; and, most importantly, if they take up various issues of interest to the values voters, including re-visiting the Constitutional Amendment on same sex marriage. (It is anticipated that some federal courts may strike down the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA], passed by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by Bill Clinton.)

If he and the Congress focus, if the President continues to send up outstanding judges for confirmation (including Supreme Court nominees if that becomes appropriate), and they actually get things done, the President might well be able to go around the country where Republican candidates are running for election, and especially re-election, and be able to say, "If you like what we did, send my team back to do more." It just might work.

Getting the Congress to have enough discipline actually to get things done is difficult. You have 535 different interests. Sure, many are willing to put the national interest above their own but they are in the minority. It is going to take incredible concentration on the part of this President, who is also busy fighting wars.

Still and all, were I a betting man, I would not bet against this President. He is always underestimated. What he accomplished by taking the tiniest victory in 2000 and turning into a mandate, then doing the next to impossible in 2002 by bringing back GOP control of the Senate and now defying history in a major, major way, he just might be able to parlay solid accomplishments into defying history in 2006. Stay tuned.

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Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.