America the rebel, has not followed California's lead. America has voted for Bush. America has voted against abortion (prolife is the positive term), for the war in Iraq, for tax cuts, against medicare, and for religion.
And it seems that this has come as a surprise to the rest of the world. The result clashes with the view we get back home. What view do we get, you ask? We get what California wants us to know, we get what New York broadcasts. And what other view is there, then? The view of deep America: the states hidden between the two coasts. The states that drive the economy, and represent the real America. The church going, god fearing America. The America that doesn't travel.
Some fun statistics: 90% of Americans do not own a passport. 50% of Americans have never travelled more than 70 miles from their birthtown.
And where do you think these Americans live?
Bush's campaign was simply brilliant. It was nice to be here and see it happen.
Bush sold himself as: prolife, religious, righteous, moral, with integrity, driven, steady, safer.
And in all these points he was undefeated.
By the time America went to the poll, Bush was the choice of America's heart. Kerry embodied anti-bushism. And with Bush standing for such values, Kerry had little chance.
Bush's campaign was run by Karl Rove: here's what the BBC had to say about him:
Republican campaign mastermind Karl Rove helped return George W Bush to the White House. The 54-year-old has charted Mr Bush's political rise since his first election as Texas governor in 1994. Mr Bush has acknowledged him as "the architect" of his latest success. Described by many commentators as brilliant, Mr Rove resolutely focused on the Republicans' conservative religious base.
He went into the campaign intent on coaxing the millions of Christian conservatives who had not voted in 2000 to go to the polls. He consistently played on deepening cultural division by emphasising Mr Bush's religious faith, his position against gay marriage and expanding embryonic stem cell research.
Mr Rove refused to listen to critics who argued that a more centrist position would be need to win the election, and it appears to have paid off. Many voters cited moral values as a top reason why they voted.
I heard an interesting story about the man. Once in a tight election race, he called the FBI and told them that he had found a bug in his office. The media "heard" of it, and soon enough people were thinking back to Watergate. "No," in a redneck accent "we don't want people like that..."Karl Rove's candidate won the election by a narrow margin. The FBI found out that the bug had been bought by Rove after the election, and the fact was then of little importance.
Check these links out:
http://www.famoustexans.com/karlrove.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove
It has been four days since the results came out, and California is quiet. No one cares anymore. Everyone knew that Bush would get elected.
Aside: California continued its unique position as a leader of not only the US, but a large portion of the innovative world, by voting yes on proposition 71. The state will fund $3 billion towards stem cell research even though it is broke. Bush does not support the innitiative but can't do much.
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