Learning Lessons from Bush and the 2000 Election

It was the first question of the night.

“One of you is about to be elected the leader of the single most powerful nation in the world, economically, financially, militarily, diplomatically, you name it. Have you formed any guiding principles for exercising this enormous power?”

It was Oct. 11, 2000. Clinton was still in office. The 2001 terrorist attacks had not yet happened. An article in that day’s The New York Times reported, “Mideast Violence Begins to Subside,” while another commented on North Korea’s “willingness to come out of its shell.”

But that night, all eyes were on the two presidential contenders, Gov. George W. Bush (R-Texas) and Vice-President Al Gore (D-Tenn.), as they stood on stage in a debate over foreign policy.

Bush answered first.

“I have,” Bush said. “The first question is what’s in the best interest of the United States?”

Later that night he added, “our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble . . . I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you.”

Indeed, in his 2000 campaign, Bush touted Christian values as one of his greatest assets, claiming that they informed his position against nation-building, as well as one key sentiment he uttered at nearly every campaign stop — “I’m a uniter, not a divider.”

Fast-forward seven years.

See the United States crippled with the burden of a warring Middle East and by a Washington deeply divided along partisan lines. In 2000, analysts celebrated the end of the imperial presidency. Now, they say Bush has only intensified it.

Voters got Bush terribly wrong. Twice.

What can we learn from this?

First, experience matters. Period. It was no secret that Bush had little political experience, and in terms of foreign policy, he had none. After all, just six years earlier, Bush looked at reporters and asked himself the question, “What’s the boy done?”

The only answer Bush had to offer was his oversight of the construction of Ameriquest Field, the Texas Rangers baseball stadium.

Second, we learn that the ideologies of a candidate speak louder than their words. The Bush campaign said he was a uniter, and voters believed him. But as a man unconditionally beholden to the ideals of a born-again Christian, how could this be? In Bush’s world, it’s us or them, good or evil. It’s a dangerous world cast in black and white with no room for complexity, for ambiguity or shades of gray.

Finally, we learn from the 2000 election that the candidate isn’t the only person voters elect. Voters also elect their friends.

Bush understood this. In this same foreign policy debate, he told the assembled crowd, “I also understand that an administration is not one person, but an administration is dedicated citizens. I've thought about an administration of people who represent all America . . . and that's Mr. Richard Cheney.”

If we understand Bush in the terms of how his past performance, ideology and alliances have shaped him, instead of judging him by how his scripted campaign had, then it is not surprising to see the huge disparity between what we thought Bush would achieve and what he has.

It’s one of the ironies of campaigns — the atmosphere they create makes it extremely difficult to separate pretense from character and to figure out just exactly what candidates stand for.

After all, in a time of careful calculations and meticulously rehearsed scripts, when hired hands calibrate the candidates’ every word and action, how could we give credit to such a grand farce?

But we blindly do. It is ignorance begotten by laziness: We often don’t challenge what campaigns and media tell us; instead we take in all the information as fact.

As the next election draws near, we must keep in mind all the lessons that Bush has imparted to us.

This time, we can’t afford to let political campaigning do our thinking for us.