David Gelernter: Bush Pulls a Truman

David Gelernter, in he Weekly Standard (Nov. 15, 2004):

ON ELECTION DAY, Establishment big shots were certain that America wanted change and that the suave, sophisticated challenger had to beat the blunt, plain, downright embarrassing incumbent. All day long they were certain. At midnight the famous radio commentator H.V. Kaltenborn summed up the position: Harry Truman was 1.2 million votes ahead, but Thomas Dewey was going to win. At 4 A.M., Kaltenborn issued an update. Truman was more than 2 million votes ahead, and Dewey was still going to win. At 10:30 the next morning, Dewey sent Truman a telegram of concession.

When it was all over, Truman's victory margin was 4.4 percentage points; Bush's margin is a little thinner. But Truman won without a majority: He got 49.5 percent of the popular vote. (There were two bonus candidates that year: the "Progressive" Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond the Dixiecrat.) George W. Bush is the first president in 16 years to win an absolute majority.

The elections of 1948 and 2004 resemble each other in many ways. But there are deeper analogies in play too. The plain-spoken moralist for whom religion matters greatly, the common man who seems too small for the presidency but is confronted in office by a cataclysm that re-creates him; who rises to the challenge and transcends it; who faces a tough re-election battle and wins it; who redefines the nation's mission in the world and emerges a hero--that is a traditional American story. It is Lincoln's story. (In summer 1864, prominent Republicans wanted to find a

stronger candidate.) No president matches Lincoln's greatness, but in modern times this was Harry Truman's story; and today it is George W. Bush's also.

In 1948, the Democratic incumbent beat the Republican challenger. The year 2004 saw a replay of that election upside-down--which tells us something about the current meanings of "Democrat" and "Republican." Today the Democrats are the timid reactionary party with strong isolationist tendencies. Today "Democrat" equals "Reactionary Liberal." Republicans are the bold internationalist progressives--the "Tory Democrats" envisioned by Benjamin Disraeli, creator of modern conservatism, and by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, its late-20th-century champions.

Kerry 2004 was a lot like Dewey '48: the stylish Establishment candidate. No one could figure out exactly where he stood, but it didn't matter. He was bound to win. Bush 2004 was a lot like Truman '48: the unstylish former businessman....