Journalists review election results in public talk at Duke

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By Kimberly Sweet : The Herald-Sun ksweet@heraldsun.com Nov 9, 2002 : 11:07 pm ET

DURHAM -- President Bush’s high approval rating, along with concerns about national security and a possible war in Iraq, helped Republicans garner their unusual victory in Tuesday’s elections, three political journalists said Saturday at Duke. [Yes, but why does the President have high approval ratings? You can't just say, well, that's why the Repubs did so well. Bush has high approval ratings because people trust and like himn--why? Beause he does what he says he's going to do, he doesn't screw around on his wife, he's honest, he doesn't govern by poll, yada, yada, yada. In other words, all the things Clinton isn't.]

The governing party’s uncharacteristic gain of seats in the Senate and the House was due largely to the core of supporters who helped elect Bush in 2000.

"Where George Bush is strong, he is very strong," said Ronald Brownstein, a national political correspondent and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. "It’s the depth, not the breadth, of political appeal that makes him such a formidable figure."

Brownstein joined CNN’s Aaron Brown and John Harwood, the national political editor for The Wall Street Journal, before an audience of about 50 at Duke’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. They analyzed the elections that resulted in Republicans retaining control of the House and gaining it in the Senate.

The result also can be attributed to voters’ anxiousness over national security, which seems to trump their economic concerns, Brown said. [Not in my case. Like others on this board, Sweetie and I are VERY worried about the economy--perhaps more so than war--and look on each pay check as our last for a while. I believe Bush will manage the economt just like he does everything else and will eventually give us a strong, well-grounded economy.]

Voters considered what the commander-in-chief needs, he said. And during Bush’s multi-state campaign blitz in the last days of the campaign, he made it clear he needs Republicans in office.

"Those voters voted from their gut to support the commander-in-chief, who in the days, weeks and months that followed Sept. 11 surprised them," Brown said. [Well, yeah, the inspid Mr. Brown did get that bit right.]

The victory boosts Bush’s power to the highest ever during his presidency, Harwood said. But now Bush and the Republicans will be expected to get something done, Harwood said. Without a divided government, they have no excuse not to pass legislation and make good on their promises.

"That’s a problem George Bush wants to have," Harwood said. "He wants to get things done instead of merely being sustained in Washington."

In the elections, Democrats were able to mobilize their voter base. But when it came to supporting the party’s agenda to revitalize the economy over the Republican agenda of national security, voters not closely aligned with one party or the other chose the latter, panelists said.

In North Carolina, Democratic Senate candidate Erskine Bowles earned as many votes losing as fellow party member Sen. John Edwards garnered when he won in 1998, Harwood said.

"Voters didn’t feel bad enough about the economy to punish Bush," Harwood said. "Unemployment is still below 6 percent, and a lot of the losses people have suffered have been paper losses."

Losing money in the market doesn’t disaffect voters as directly as losing jobs, he said. [North Carolina has lost a good many jobs and everybody knows several people who've been laid off. NC went for Bush because of the reasons outlined above.]

Looking to 2004, Democrats will have to do more than get out their voter bases, Brownstein said. They will have to attack Bush’s electoral strongholds, which go beyond the states he won in the 2000 election. They include outlying urban and suburban areas, "where people have moved to get away to a safer, more moral environment," he said. Those Bush strongholds fall squarely in Democratic territory, he said.

The journalists talked about the failure on election night of the Voter News Service to deliver exit poll information that helps news organizations project winners and understand voting trends.

"It would have been nice to know more demographic information," Brownstein said. "But as a viewer, it was fine."

Said Brown: "I liked that 70 percent of the precincts were reported before we called it. The viewers were happy we counted the votes, and so was I."

Amid the chaos that surrounded newsrooms when Voter News Service failed to return results, Harwood said, he wound up looking wise. Because of hard economic times at The Wall Street Journal, earlier executives had persuaded Harwood not to subscribe to the service, which would have cost $30,000.

But Brown lightheartedly remarked that the payment might have helped the service function properly.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002


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