| 2004 Elections and Their Impact on the 109th Congress
Stuart Rothenberg
 Last November the United States had a “status quo election,” according to political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg, keynote speaker at the 2005 Legislative Conference. However, the Bush Administration has plans for a second term legislative agenda that is anything but status quo.
Rothenberg, whose newsletter analyzes House, Senate and presidential campaigns, said last year's election was not the history-making event some political observers suggest it was. As evidence, he noted that only three states switched their political preferences in the 2004 presidential election. New Hampshire went from supporting President Bush to favoring Sen. Kerry, while Iowa and New Mexico went from supporting the Democratic nominee in 2000 to favoring Bush in 2004.
In Congress the changes were also minimal. For example, only three House members outside of Texas (where congressional districts were dramatically redrawn) were defeated. Although Republicans gained four Senate seats, they won these in conservative states with open seats.
Rothenberg believes the election was not a mandate on Social Security—or any other issue. The most important single issue was on national security and the war on terrorism, he stressed. “Americans believed George Bush was the better person to handle national security,” Rothenberg said. “This was not,” he contended, “an election on moral issues.”
The Bush Administration has developed a “very ambitious agenda, especially for a second term,” Rothenberg noted. He also suggested the president faces a large obstacle persuading Congress that his election represents a mandate to reform Social Security now, years before the program faces serious financial problems. He noted that several senior Republicans in Congress have already indicated their concern on this issue. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas recently called the idea “a dead horse.”
Rothenberg said he expects the political polarity so evident in recent years to continue. “We Americans tend to listen to people who agree with us, reinforcing our biases,” he said. “We rally around the president during a crisis, such as 9/11, but the closer we get to an election we revert to our political preferences.”
The death of the Democratic Party “has been grossly exaggerated,” Rothenberg said. He predicts in two years Democrats will have a majority of governorships, but could lose more Senate seats in the 2006 elections. Such changes in political preferences have occurred many times in American history, and will continue, he said. “I remember when many people thought the Republican Party was dead following Goldwater's defeat in 1964. It didn't happen.”
Stuart Rothenberg is editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report, a Washington-based biweekly newsletter that reports on and analyzes national and state elections.
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