Volume 2, Issue 4

This article examines the 2004 presidential campaign by examining the trinity of fundamentals that have historically affected presidential elections and how they “played out” in this year’s campaign. The three fundamentals are public opinion about the in-party and candidates before the campaign gets underway, the state of the pre-campaign economy, and incumbency (both personal and party-term incumbency). They are assessed for elections since 1948 and in one case since 1868. The first two of these fundamentals slightly favored President Bush and the third (an incumbent seeking a second party-term) strongly favored him. The analysis considers how the fundamentals interplayed with voter assessments of candidate qualities, issues, and ideology to lead to the closely fought Bush re-election. After all is said and done, after considering the impact of the war on terror and in Iraq, the election turned out much as one would have expected based on candidates’ ideological positions. The 2004 election added another case to the string of presidential losses by liberal northern Democrats since 1968.

The consensus immediately following the 2004 presidential election was that Bush won because of support for "moral values." I challenge this interpretation by showing that Bush won because of widespread increase in his support among white and married women. I hypothesize that this is a response to concerns about domestic security rather than support for Bush's position against gay marriage. In addition, Bush was generally helped by higher turnout, though Kerry's efforts brought down the Republican vote share in battleground states.

An analysis of the 2004 presidential election results indicates that President Bush’s relatively narrow victory reflected the normal advantage of incumbency and preexisting divisions within the American electorate rather than a fundamental shift in the partisan or ideological loyalties of the electorate. There was little change in the public’s attitudes toward Mr. Bush or the political parties during the campaign and gay marriage referenda had no discernible impact on either voter turnout or support for the President. However, Mr. Bush did somewhat better than expected in the states most directly affected by the September 11th terrorist attacks.

A record 122.3 million people, or 60.0% of those eligible, cast a vote for president in 2004. In this essay, I examine variation in voter participation among the states. I find that electoral competition in the battleground states was associated with higher turnout rates, and that where competition at the presidential level was not present, an amendment banning gay marriage or an interesting Senate election is related to higher voter turnout.

Shortly after the election, President George W. Bush initiated a major restructuring of his cabinet. The post-election weeks have been filled with the drama of the selection process: who was in, who was out, whom would the President choose to fill the empty slots? Come January, the drama will move to Capitol Hill, for the hearings, floor speeches and votes that make up the Senate confirmation process. A Senate tradition of deferring to Presidents on their selections – particularly for Cabinet appointments – has lost strength, and instead has been replaced by a practice of opposition party Senators using nominations to attack the President and his party and hone their opposition party message for mass consumption. This paper looks at President Bush’s new Cabinet appointments in light of these developments in the confirmation process, and offers some predictions for what will happen in January.

The 2004 elections positioned George W. Bush to advance into the forefront among presidents as party leaders. For his first term, Bush merits well above-average marks in this realm. Now that the 2004 votes have been counted, Bush is poised to become the standard-setter; but he faces formidable obstacles. This essay will initially propose a comparative framework for analyzing and evaluating presidential party leadership. Next, it will employ that framework in briefly reviewing developments in Bush’s first presidential term. Then, it will consider his prospects for party leadership in his second term, in light of the 2004 elections.