Presidential candidates of the 2004 election

Maybe Same-Sex Marriages Didn't Make the Difference: New York Times. Nov. 7, 2004.

The popular thinking among both Republicans and Democrats is that the Republican strategists - namely, Karl Rove - used the parties' differences on gay marriage to divide the nation and improve voter turnout for Bush in the election. Voter turnout, it was theorized, was supposed to help Kerry and hurt Bush, but in an election with tremendous voter turnout, Bush came out on top.

In fact, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, noted that the Democrats pushed gay marriage too early, too much and intimated that that might have been one of the reasons Kerry lost. The largest fact in favor of this line of thinking is the fact that Ohio passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage by 68% to 32%, and Ohio was, of course, the pivotal state in the election.

However, gay rights advocates refute the claim, arguing instead that gay marriage was simply one of the causes that garnered victory for Bush over Kerry, via Karl Rove. In fact, gay rights advocates point to a late-election shift on Bush's part to cater to the fact that most people do support civil unions.

Bush Seeks Limit on Malpractice Jury Awards: New York Times. Nov. 16, 2004.

The Republicans, led by Bush, wielded the malpractice jury awards weapon with regularity and menace during the 2004 election. The Democrats, having chosen as their vice-presidential nominee an ex-trial attorney - John Edwards - reeled as a result.

The drive to cap malpractice verdicts to actual economic damages was a cornerstone of the Bush campaign, and now with a majority in both the Senate and House, it seems likely that Bush will institute measures that will inevitably anger trial lawyers. Bush argued that the cap-less malpractice jury awards raised health care costs in two ways: First, driving up insurance costs, and second, by forcing the practice of defensive medicine which, he claims, is highly economically inefficient.

Malpractice suits add up to $100 billion a year, and doctors often shy away from telling patients what may go wrong with a procedure because they are afraid of being sued. Kerry, on the other hand, did not oppose malpractice verdicts, since one of the Democratic party's largest supporters is the American Trial Lawyers Association, and his vice-presidential candidate made his name and fortune as a trial lawyer.

Bush Challenged on DC Gun Bill: Washington Post. September 24, 2004.

Two Democratic representatives, Henry Waxman and John Conyers, demanded that Bush take a stand on the Republican sponsored bill that went before Congress that essentially stood to eliminate all of the District of Columbia's gun control laws.

The bill was designed to end the city's stringent bans on handguns and semiautomatic weapons, lift registration requirements for ammunition and other weapons and decriminalize possession of unregistered firearms and carrying a handgun in one's home or office.

They wrote that if the bill became law, "someone could legally possess a semiautomatic [.50-caliber] sniper rifle and armor piercing ammunition in an apartment overlooking... Connecticut Avenue, a common route for motorcades.

Ice cream and hot dog vendors [on the Mall] could be armed with assault weapons.... A Capitol Hill resident who lived across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court could sit on his porch with a fully-loaded semiautomatic Uzi Carbine."

High flying language, yes, but gun control is quite a sensitive topic in the nation's capital, especially, since it has one of the nation's highest murder rates, and is a prime target for terrorism.

The issue in the district crystallized a national fight among Republicans and Democrats over gun control, especially since the ban on assault weapons expired right before the election.

Kerry Blasts Bush on Guns: Washington Post. Sept. 13, 2004.

In a related article, Kerry attacked Bush for allowing the ban on semiautomatic weapons to expire. Bush based his campaign on his ability to defend America, so Kerry pounced on an inconsistency forced upon Bush by his gun-control opposing, fundamental constitutional-right-to-carry-weapons supporting Christian-right backing colleagues in the Republican party.

Kerry noted in a stump speech in the District of Columbia, one of the sites of the September 11 terrorist bombings, that now any terrorist can walk into a gun show or into a gun store and walk out with an AK-47, no questions asked.

This in turn makes law enforcement's job harder, and the anti-terrorist forces' jobs harder in containing terrorists. It is hard enough to know who the terrorists are with strict gun control laws; without them, it would be virtually impossible, Kerry argued.

Kerry based his argument on the takeaway from the Sept 11 Commission Report's findings that terrorists are encouraged to purchase assault weapons in the United States itself.

Events Forcing Abortion on Kerry: Washington Post. June 3, 2004.

Kerry throughout the campaign avoided the abortion issue as much as possible, simply because the issue puts him at a crossroads. He feels personally that abortions are incorrect, but his party's view - and, he would like us to believe - his own political stance, is that woman should have the right.

However, with the court ruling that the partial birth abortion ban is unconstitutional, Kerry was forced to tackle the issue.

This, of course, was bad news for Democrats who realize that Kerry's comments on abortion could anger independents and moderate Republicans and cost Kerry votes - which, of course, it may have.

The controversy is strongest among Catholics, people of Kerry's own faith. As a rule, Catholics and the Catholic religion oppose abortion, and Catholic leaders have lambasted Kerry for betraying them on abortion.

Kerry may have done himself him when he said he wouldn't appoint a Supreme Court justice in a 5-4 court who would strike down Roe v Wade, but that he would appoint such a justice in a more divided court.

Comments such as these were a true expression of Kerry's thoughts, but led voters to believe that he flip-flopped, whereas Bush came down strongly against women's rights and women's ability to own or control their own bodies.

Again, the flip-flopping issue may have cost Kerry votes, this time on abortion rights.

From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity: Washington Post, May 31, 2004.

The Bush campaign, the Washington Post reports, flat-out lied about Kerry's positions in order to mislead the voters and win the election.

For instance, Cheney claimed that Kerry did not believe the war on terror was a war at all; and that Kerry planned to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office.

Republican political ads followed prevarication suit. Bush's campaign alleged that Kerry planned to scrap wiretaps that are used to catch terrorists. Then the Bush campaign alleged that Kerry planned to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents. Finally, Bush aides claimed that Kerry now opposed education reforms he supported in 2001.

In reality, "the charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications."

In other words, the Bush campaign lied or distorted the truth in order to create an aura of Kerry as soft on terrorism, and someone who would physically invade middle class families' homes and take their money through taxes.

Revelations such as this are valuable, of course, since this misleading from Karl Rove is claimed to be one of the reasons Bush won the election and America is left with four more years of his Republican administration.

Deep Divide on Domestic Front: Washington Post. Oct. 14, 2004.

In the final debate of the 2004 campaign, Bush and Kerry battled mightily over domestic issues. Kerry accused Bush of simply standing by as millions of Americans lost jobs and health care, and Bush argued that Kerry had done nothing in the Senate to reverse either trend himself.

Bush said famously, "his rhetoric doesn't match his record." He then cited 98 times Kerry voted to raise taxes, and when votes were up to reduce taxes, that Kerry voted against those measures 127 times. All in all, according to Bush, Kerry voted 227 times to waive the budget caps, which would have cost Americans $4.2 trillion.

And neither side's accusations were beyond reproach, according to the Washington Post: "Amid the exchange of charges and countercharges, Bush and Kerry spoke personally about the role of faith and religion in their lives and how that animates their view of governing. They also occasionally played fast and loose with facts, and each repeatedly charged the other with distortions and inaccuracies."

Essentially, it was an acrimonious debate, filled with vitriol, fake facts and accusations.

The Intelligence Gap: Washington Post. Oct 25, 2004.

This is no surprise, of course, given the areas from which Bush and Kerry drew their supporters, but the Washington Post found that there is indeed a huge education disparity between those who voted for Bush and those who voted for Kerry in the recent 2004 election.