Bush's Campaign: is 2004 becoming 1984?

Matt Virgile Guest Writer

Looking back on world this past year, things were looking bleak for the Bush administration. Most of the polls showed that the majority of Americans disapproved of the military policy in Iraq, were horrified by the Abu Ghirab prison scandal, were turned off by Bush’s determination to outlaw same-sex marriage, and would rather vote for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

As if that wasn’t enough, these objections were soon followed by the release of Michael Moore’s smash hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which swayed countless undecided voters to vote for Kerry, or at least not to vote for Bush. With Bush vulnerable, everything was going favorably for the Democrats and it looked like Kerry was going to win the 2004 presidential election.

But all of that changed just a few weeks ago.

Following the Republican National Convention in New York City, just about every poll conducted by a major news source showed that Bush had gained the lead; both Time and Newsweek polls showed that he had an 11 percent lead over Kerry. Despite the margin of error and other factors that prevent these polls from being entirely accurate, it is clear that Bush has now become the favorite in the election.
So what was said at the Convention that suddenly caused the American public to switch sides? With all of the things that have gone wrong for the Bush administration this year, it would have to be something pretty powerful, wouldn’t it?

Not really. To sum it up, the Convention was much the same as all political conventions—one big, jingoistic, pointless pep rally. The speakers, who included California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elizabeth Dole, and Georgia Senator Zell Miller, all praised President Bush and the traditional Republican platform.

Schwarzenegger’s speech largely consisted of “If you believe in (insert a random value of the Republican party), then you are a Republican!” and went on to praise American heroes like John Wayne. Elizabeth Dole condemned the removal of the Ten Commandments from an Alabama courthouse, emphasizing religion among other conservative values. None of these speakers revealed anything we haven’t heard before; all merely expressed their pride in being Republicans.

And then there was the grand finale: George W. Bush himself came out to accept his presidential nomination and addressed the crowd. Surprisingly, very little of his speech was about the current state of the nation and many of his statements began with the phrase “In a new term…” Very few references were made to issues of his first term, and these were mainly about the US military policy in Iraq and the Middle East.

Just like that, it was as if everyone forgot about everything that went wrong for the Bush administration hitherto the Convention. A blind patriotic pride has swept over many Americans. The convention was big on image, shoving patriotism down our throats, but lacking substance and legitimate reasons to support Bush.

Are the American people really that stupid? Are we going to fall for some corny, baseless propaganda just like that?

Absolutely. You’d be surprised to discover how misinformed many Americans are. In May 2003, 22 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had used WMDs on US forces in the war in Iraq, and in June 2003, 34 percent believed that Saddam’s WMDs had been found. In addition, 44 million Americans cannot read or write above a fourth-grade level, only 11 percent of Americans read a daily newspaper, and 30 percent believe that “politics and government are too complicated to understand.”

President Bush has taken advantage of the ignorance of the American public to gain support for his political agenda. Just think what would happen if more Americans knew that the US trade deficit in 2003 was nearly half a trillion dollars, the worst in history for a single year. Or that 39 percent of Bush’s tax cuts will go to the top 1 percent of American families. Or that 2.4 million Americans lost their health insurance during Bush’s first year in office. Or that 4.7 million bankruptcies were declared during Bush’s first three years in office. Or that both Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill have separately stated that the Bush administration wanted an excuse to invade Iraq from day one. Just like The Party’s slogan from George Orwell’s 1984, “ignorance is strength” for President Bush.

It all depends on us to change the current path our country is taking. According to a post Convention poll from CNN/USA Today/Gallup, Bush has just a one percent lead above Kerry among registered voters, but Bush also has a seven percent lead over Kerry among likely voters. It’s inconceivable how any registered voter could not be a likely voter for this upcoming election. With over one thousand US soldiers killed in Iraq and countless Iraqi casualties, it is selfish and atrocious to ignore what is going on in the world. We only have ourselves to thank for Bush being in office, and it is unforgivable to remain apathetic after all that has happened and allow him to be re-elected. Bush must go, and that is definitely not “too complicated to understand."