Thinking about the majority of voters who told pollsters America is on the wrong track — maybe they were saying: enough is enough
The last CBS/New York Times poll before the election got the Bush/Kerry margin right at 3%. The polls internals had the following question:
Do you feel things in this country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?
– Right Direction: 43%
– Wrong Track: 55%
– D/K: 2%
I have read in various places, including Mickey Kaus, that the Kerry campaign took this right/wrong direction question as a hopeful sign for the campaign. I always thought that was problematic, and now we know that many “wrong track” respondents voted for George Bush on election day. What does this mean? One plausible interpretation is that a number of Americans wanted to see the war in Iraq prosecuted far more vigorously than was being done, an interpretation that I have written about previously, and that surely contains some truth. Yet this explanation seems to go not nearly far enough.
The Ron Artest incident seems significant in this regard. There have been plenty of fights at professional sports events before, including fights with fans and fights in which participants were seriously injured or arrested. Maybe I’m wrong, but there’s a different feel to this incident. I keep hearing people saying, in so many words: enough is enough.
The election is over, and yet, to one side, it isn’t. Kerry is issuing new commericals, Pelosi and Boxer call trivial matters the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Old Media dreams of American war crimes, and — even after a decisive victory with historic coattails — everything Bush does is still wrong.
So far the Democratic party and its Old Media spin machine have learned absolutely nothing from their defeat — they still want to hector and lecture the American majority that what they like, think, do, say, and who they vote for are all wrong. I hear an American majority beginning to raise its voice, on many issues, to this arrogant minority. I hear America saying: enough is enough.