I Love the 2000s...Part 3

Moving forward down my list of the top events of the decade I turn to number 9: the Elections of 2004 and 2006. One was a presidential one featuring John Kerry and George W. Bush and the other was a critical midterm election.

In 2004, George W. Bush entered as the incumbent in the midst of two wars and a continued war on terror. Hence, the foreign agenda dominated the primaries and the election. The Iraq invasion in 2003 was definitely on a lot of people's minds. Similarly to 2000, there was a close vote that gave way to some uncertainty of accuracy in the results. Senator John Kerry had emerged from a crowded Democratic candidate pool, but his fate would come down to Ohio. Just like Florida in 2000, Ohio had enough electoral votes to put George W. Bush over the top and enough to prevent John Kerry from victory. The end result would be Bush with 286 electoral votes and Kerry with 251.

To get to this election would be three years and a tumultuous fourth with debates, primaries, and a lot of sparring. Less than a year into the Bush presidency, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 took place and shook the foundation of the United States and shifted his presidency. His approval ratings skyrocketed to close 90% as patriotism was at an all time high. This attack would set in motion the Afghanistan War, which I will talk about more in another post. In 2003, Bush would then target Iraq and begin a second war in the Middle East. Afghanistan was based around the terrorist attack and Osama Bin Laden while Iraq was based around the possibility of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and Saddam Hussein. These two wars were enough for Bush to get his party around him and ward off much of a primary challenge. For that reason, Bush had enough delegates to sow up the Republican nomination. On September 2, 2004; along with Vice President Dick Cheney; he accepted the party's nomination at their convention in New York City. The party platform centered around defending America from terrorism.

On the Democratic side, things were not as crystal clear. With about an year until the election, Howard Dean, governor of Vermont, emerged as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. A big source of his lead was his groundbreaking strategy to use the Internet to raise funds and promote his candidacy. Another big name on the Democratic side was Kerry. He had fewer endorsements and trailed in the superdelegates count entering Iowa in January 2004. Sound familiar? Kerry was getting a lot of endorsements though in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Kerry's campaign was a bit rocky in the beginning, but he recovered to win the Iowa caucus in a bit of a shock. Finishing second was John Edwards, a Senator as well. Also in the race was retired four-star general Wesley Clark and Dick Gephardt. The biggest thing that came out of the Iowa caucus was the post-caucus speech by Howard Dean. The "BYAHH" rant was a bit over the top and might have hurt Dean's prospects of coming back after a third place finish in Iowa. Kerry continued his momentum with a win in New Hampshire. After being unable to gain enough momentum, Dean withdrew early on in the primary season and left Edwards as the chief opponent for Kerry. With an impressive showing on Super Tuesday, Kerry was all but the nominee and with that Edwards withdrew. In July at the Democratic Convention in Boston, MA; John Kerry was officially nominated as the candidate of the Democratic Party for president and John Edwards was chosen to run alongside him. The ticket would center their platform around making America safer and more respected.

In terms of the campaign, Bush was all about national security and he would paint Kerry as someone weak on the subject and indecisive compared to himself. The threat of terrorism and two wars gave many Americans a lot of uncertainty when it came to national security and needed to know who they could trust more. Bush also looked to show himself as more connected with the American electorate as a whole compared to Kerry who was "out of touch". Kerry was also said to be more concerned with domestic issues than foreign ones when in 2004 much of the focus was on areas outside our borders. Then much of the focus turned away from what the two men were about as a candidate for president to what they were like 30 plus years earlier. There was much focus on the two's military service and in Bush's case; his lack of such service. However, there was also a campaign against Kerry led by Swift Vets and POWs for Truth in regard to whether Kerry was as honorable a serviceman as he built himself to be. These ads plus the post convention "bumps" gave President Bush a double digit lead over Kerry with about two months to go.

During the course of a few weeks that fall, there would be three presidential and one vice presidential debates. The first debate focused on foreign policy and the Iraq dominated much of the conversation. Before the second presidential debate, the vice presidential debate occurred. The second debate was an informal town hall style debate. The third debate was more along the same lines at the first one with domestic issues on the agenda. The debates gave Kerry a bump and created a close race down the stretch. Not much would change as the previous ads and statements that were brought up in the early part of the fall and late summer only got more intense as election day approached.

Recently, Tom Ridge, the former Head of the Homeland Security Department, mentioned that there were possible changes made last minute to the color-coded threat meter. There is not 100% certainty of if the threat was real at the time worthy of increasing the color from yellow to orange. It definitely played into how voters approached election day as they needed to chose between keeping a war president in office or elect a new person to direct the nation during two wars and a new world perspective with terrorism at the center. Ultimately it would be Ohio that still to this day is a center of some controversy. Polling locations had lines, were turning people away, and there might have been ballots that were not 100% accurate. However, there was not of case to be made for that and Bush edged by again to get a second term and continue to build upon his first term while Kerry went home empty handed to think about missed opportunities to win. This election will probably be dismissed over time as it is sandwiched in between the disputed election of 2000 and the historic election of 2008. But it is still a close election that at times lost its main focus through propaganda and a fear of terrorism. Hence, it was definitely one of the biggest events of the 2000s.

The midterm elections in 2006 were certainly one of the bigger midterm elections in recent history. 33 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate were up for grabs. Six Republican Senators (Rick Santorum (PA), Mike DeWine (OH), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Jim Talent (MO), Conrad Burns (MT), and George Allen (VA)) all lost while Democrats kept their seats in a race in MN and a race in MD. Republicans held onto their lone open seat in TN. Senator Joseph Lieberman lost a Democratic primary in CT, but got reelected as an independent and Bernie Sanders won an open seat in VT as an independent. Two new females joined the Senate (Claire McCaskill and Amy Klobuchar) and brought the total females in the Senate up to 16; an all time high. The victories tipped the balance of power in the Senate and gave the Democrats a 51-49 when you include Senators Sanders and Lieberman who caucused with the Democrats.

Many races were close and featured open seats that made things that much more interesting. In Missouri, Jim Talent (R) was running for a full term against Claire McCaskill (D). In the end, McCaskill edged Talent 50% to 47% and claimed the seat. In Montana, Conrad Burns (R) was barely reelected in 2000 and would face a tough challenge from state Senator Jon Tester (D). Burns had made some missteps that gave Tester a lead, but the gap closed. However, Tester would prevail by a little more than 3,000 votes. In Ohio, Mike DeWine (R) faced tough times for his party in the state and would have to deal with a tough challenge Representative Sherrod Brown (D). As the election neared, Brown gained a bigger advantage over DeWine and ended up winning the seat by a 56% to 44% margin. In Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum (R) was a major target of the Democratic Party and the Party chose Bob Casey (D) as their challenger and put all their resources behind him. Santorum only continued to dig himself a bigger grave and suffered the worse incumbent Senatorial loss since 1980 when Casey cruised past him with a 59% to 41% victory. In Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee (R) faced the challenge of running for reelection in a heavily Democratic state with a bad view towards a Republican president and also had to deal with the tough challenge from former State Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse. Chafee was a liberal member of his party, but it wasn't enough as Whitehouse won by a vote of 53% to 47%. In Virginia, George Allen (R) had put himself in a great position early on and had a double digit lead and even had his name among potential candidates in 2008. He hurt himself in the summer and early fall though with racial slurs including the "macaca" comment about one of his opponent's, Jim Webb (D), staffers. These big mistakes by Allen cost him dearly as the gap closed and Webb emerged with a slight advantage. When the dust cleared, the result was the closest percentage wise of all the Senate races as Webb edged Allen by about 7,000 votes or approximately 0.5% of the votes. The contest lingered a couple days after election day with some re-analysis of results before Allen finally conceded.

One of the more controversial races took place in Tennessee featuring Bob Corker (R) against Harold Ford Jr. (D). The race was an open seat contest that got interesting late with ads against Ford linking him to attending Playboy parties. The race was close as both were well funded and popular in the state. In the end, Corker edged Ford with a victory by 51% to 48%. There is still some debate about the ads and the role they played.

When the dust settled, the Democratic Party had regained majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives after 12 years. With that also came the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives with Nancy Pelosi taking over the gavel. Harry Reid became the new Senate Majority Leader. It was an election that was a sign of things to possibly come in 2008 and also a rejection of much of the decisions of the Republican Congress under President Bush's guidance. Not often do a lot of seats switch the way they did and certainly was one of the most eventful midterm elections. And ranks among one of the major events of the decade of the 2000s.

Next we turn to another major event: the Anthrax outbreak.