When a Landslide is Really Just the Ground Giving Way Underneath You

Robert J. Elisberg

03.03.2006

When a Landslide is Really Just the Ground Giving Way Underneath You

Two days after his election a year ago, George Bush said, "Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."

Alas, he has since learned the lesson that Americans have long known: a dollar just doesn't go as far these days.

Of course, George Bush did earn political capital in the campaign. That can't be denied. The pesky problem is that he didn't earn nearly as much as he thought. While he believed that he had one of the great landslide mandates in American history (or maybe hoped that 59 million people would forget they didn't vote for him two days earlier), the reality is that he squeaked by with in the smallest margin by any sitting President during wartime, a paltry three million votes out of 121 million cast. (If a handful of votes had been counted differently in Ohio, then John Kerry is President. Boy, how's that for a flip-flop?) Yes, George Bush did earn capital - but he only earned a few bucks. Chump change. "Here, kid, go buy yourself an ice cream cone" kind of capital. The kind of political capital that slips out of your dad's pockets when he's lying on the couch.

It's one thing to use smoke and mirrors to trick people. It may work, it may not. But make no mistake, perception is not reality. Reality is reality. You may perceive that if you jump off a skyscraper, you can fly. The concrete pavement will tell you otherwise. No matter how loudly and often you yammer that you won a mandate, no matter how much a perception you create otherwise - the cold, hard, actual numbers will rear their ugly head. And George Bush has finally hit the concrete.

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