Can anyone tell me why they voted for GW Bush in the last election?

Question

I know it was a long time ago, but I have never understood why or how he got re-elected. Was it the "don't chnage horses in midstream" argument, or the smears against John Kerry, or what?

I don't see the attraction of the man at all and am curious as to what people see in him.

Answer 1

I voted for him. Here are a few things he has accomplished which help me to see past an emotional hatred of him in order to assess his presidency in an honest manner. These are all things that liberals would typically support:

•Signed the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill - reduces the amount of soft money influence for supporting candidates.
•Bush is the first president to allow federal funds to be spent on embryo cell research.
•Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - devotes $15 billion over 5 years to treat current AIDS victims in Africa and prevent new cases. Another $1 billion devoted for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
•Signed the National Do Not Call Registry - Who wouldn’t support a bill that keeps telemarketers from interrupting dinner?
•Created the Marriage Tax Credit and cut income taxes for married couples.
•Increased the Child Tax Credit and arranged for it to double over 10 years.
•Elimination of dividend tax, increasing the rate of return on 401(K) and 403(B) retirement accounts.
•Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001- (remember getting that check? Were you not happy to get a little of your money back?) This act also reduced the tax bracket of the lowest wage earners to 10%. Six million poor people now pay no tax at all.
•Doubled the Lifetime Learning Credit and increased the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit - encourages enrollment in higher education and provides financial relief for college students and/or their families.
•No Child Left Behind- Yes, this one is widely debated regarding underfunding by congress. However, it is a more sound education initiative than has ever been proposed before.
•American Competitiveness Initiative – Strengthening children’s math and science skills by providing additional training for 70,000 math and science teachers and bringing 30,000 math and science professional into the classroom.
•Jobs for the 21st Century Program - helps schools by providing $250 million to promote partnerships between community colleges and employers, $33 million for Pell Grants for low-income students, $100 million to improve high school reading, $120 million to improve high school math, $12 million to provide state scholars grants, $40 million to create Adjunct Teachers Corps.
•Medicare Reform including “Part B” - prescription drug assistance for the elderly. Now, all seniors are eligible and the poor are subsidized. There is a prescription cost cap at 6,000/year.
•Child Custody Protection Act- Makes it a federal offense to transport a child across state lines without a parent’s consent.
•Mental Health Parity Bill - forces insurance companies to treat and pay for psychiatric illnesses the same as any other medical condition.
•Humanitarian foreign policy including billions devoted to Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake and to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami.
•Personally visited New Orleans 13 times in the year following Katrina.
•Appointed more minorities to his cabinet and the Supreme Court than any other president.
•Supported approval of RU-486 (morning after pill).
•New Freedom Initiative - devotes $145 billion over 5 years to help disabled people afford assistive technologies, fund innovations for transportation of the disabled, expand employment opportunities, and improve access to places of worship.
•DNA Initiative - devotes $1 billion to expand the use of DNA evidence in solving crimes and preventing wrongful convictions.
•Access to Recovery Program - provides $200 million for chemical dependency treatment for addicts via vouchers.
•Increased funding for research on addiction through the Substance Abuse Prevention Treatment Grant
•Increased budget of National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to $442 million.
•Increased budget of National Institute on Drug Abuse to $1.19 billion.
•Increased budget of Substance Abuse Prevention Program to $200 million.
•Increased budget of Center for Substance Abuse Treatment to $419 million.
•Doubled NIH budget to $28 billion.
•Family Health Credit - Pays 90% of low income health insurance policy.
•Devoted $3.6 billion for 1200 new community centers.
•Restricted teen smoking by signing several tough federal laws.
•Initiated the Low Income Heating Oil Assistance Program
•Established the USA Freedom Corps to encourage individuals to volunteer in their local communities through numerous volunteer service programs.
•Devoted $1.7 billion over 5 years for attractive home rehab loans in poor neighborhoods.
•Appointed Laura Bush to head the Anti-Gang Initiative (It is customary for all First Ladies to have appointments to lead their own projects to help at-risk youth).
•Passed 13-week extension of unemployment benefits.
•Clear Skies Initiative - among many other things this will reduce the intensity of greenhouse gases by 18% and reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury by 70% over 10 years.
•Land and Water Conservation Fund - provides $900 million in incentives for conservation efforts by states, local, and private land owners.
•Land Owner Incentive Program - helps private land owners protect animal species and conservation.
•President’s Awards for Private Stewardship Program - recognizes and honors excellent examples of land conservation by private owners.
•FreedomFUEL Initiative - devotes $ 1.7 billion to make hydrogen cars common by 2020.
•Brownfields Reform Bill - devotes $211 million annually to clean neglected and abandoned urban areas.
•Devoted $4.9 million to repair national parks and refuges.
•Adoption Promotion Act - provides incentives for the adoption of children, with added incentives for adopting older children.
•Hope for Children Act - Increased adoption tax credit to $10,000 for all adoptions.
•Promoted sweeping improvements of the child welfare system including adoption and foster care agencies, daycares, and caseworkers.
•Project Childsafe - makes homes with firearms safer. Among other things, it provides firearm safety education to children and free gun locks and safety kits to parents.
•Kept background checks at gun shows and kept all other permanent restrictions/gun laws. He did allow the “Assualt Weapons Ban” to expire, which was not a ban on assault weapons at all.
•New Prosperity Initiative - Provides a $2000 health insurance tax credit, home rental vouchers, homeowner tax credits, and 50% tax credit for 20,000 new home rehabs per year.
•Initiated $7.4 billion in tax incentives for purchasing nursing home insurance and financial relief for people who care for an elderly or disabled person at home.
•FutureGen Initiative – will allow the US to build the world’s first power plant to run on coal and remove virtually all pollutants.
•Advanced Energy Initiative - will reduce the use of non-renewable fuel resources by focusing on development of cheap, clean, and safe nuclear power production as well as new alternative energy sources.
•Biodiesel Tax Incentive- As part of the “Jobs Bill,” this encourages the use of biodiesel fuel to be mixed in higher proportion with petroleum fuel.

Here are some things Bush supports and wants to get passed:
•Immigration reform including a “guest worker program” and amnesty for Mexicans who have been in the United States illegally for several years.
•Energy Independence- For fiscal year 2007, proposing $44 million for wind energy research, $150 million for solar technology research,
•Patient Bill of Rights including eliminating gatekeepers for specialists like gynecologists, placing doctors in charge of deciding the correct treatment, reducing premiums, and allowing patients to participate in clinical trials of medications.
•Replace 75% of oil imports by 2025.
•Create a “Father’s Registry” to force accountability and involvement of fathers who may otherwise avoid financial support of their children.

Answer 2

The problem with the American political system is the fact that it is a two party system. There is no longer a choice of right and wrong, but a choice of bad and worse. I do not look at my vote for George Bush as a vote for him, rather as a vote against John Kerry. Quite simply, John Kerry and the rest of the Democrats (My party affliation) has criticized the President and the President's term time and time again. You do not have to tell me George Bush is a bad President. I know this. I want to know what the Democrats plan to do to do better and that is where they failed. It is easy to say the war in Iraq is wrong, but if you cannot give me a detailed plan on how to rectify the situation then i think you are just as big of a part of the problem.

Answer 3

I" was "a lifelong Republican but voted for Kerry because I thought Dem control in Washington was overdue. I was so angry the day after the election that I went down to the courthouse and changed my party affiliation. "Dubya" was re-elected because !:He was still selling the Iraq boondoogle as a successful war on terrosim; 2: The economy hadn't tanked yet;3: His political strategists did
a better job than Kerry's; 4 He had a massive warchest and an incumbents advantage.
Of course too many voters were uninformed ( brain dead) and just voted along party lines. Of course he lost the popular vote. Then too, he only narrowly won Ohio.The margin there was just a few votes per precinct.
Finally, he was able to muster a lot of support from the "Chrisitian conservative" He really coyzied up to the Moral Majority.
Ask yourself, How much power do you think "Big Oil" has? G.W is in thick with the Saudis; Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves; Sadam tried to have the
other Bush assasinated; and Geo. Herbert Bush had said during Dessert Storm that he be D--ned if some tin horn dictator was going to control that much oil. Oil = $ and money =power Look who won the fat contract to supply services to the U.S. military in Iraq..Halliburton! Dick Cheney's old company
Why DID anyone vote for GW? Because we all were conned! I mean, who would vote for an alcoholic, awol fighter pilot who barely made it into Yale and barely managed to graduate? This is the Prez who continued to read stories to schoolchildren after he'd been informed that the World Trade Towers had been attacked! Go figure

Answer 4

I voted for Bush for the following reasons:

1) He was the first President to articulate and follow a policy of offensive operations against terrorist instead of waiting for them to attack and play defense. Initiative is everything in battle.

2) I think the living constitution doctrine is inherently undemocratic and dangerous. I want SC judges who leave the legislating to the legislature. I will think this even when democrats are in control of congress which appears to be on the horizon. Kelo vs. Connecticut is a prime example of a horrible SC decision handed down by the liberal justices. Bush 43 has a better constitutional doctrine.

3) John Kerry wanted to be President just to be President. He was the kind of politico who would vote for something before he voted against it. This was an example of someone who would make life and death decisions based on politics first. I would vote for a Feingold who has always opposed the war or a Hillary Clinton who has stood firmly on the original decision despite the political cost before I would vote for a political weather vane. I did not support Bush 41 in 1992 for this reason. Bush 43 has a core. He is sometimes wrong. But it is never because he is following the polls. I want that in a leader.

4) Tax cuts. The democrats seem to be stuck in the idea that tax increases are good for the economy. They aren't.

BTW....swift boat did not make one ounce of difference for me. I am more concerned with the present than the past.

Answer 5

Karl Rove, the brilliant campaign strategist for George Bush, through his intimate knowledge of state and county elections and voter behavior framed the debate around these issues.
The republican machine went into high gear cranking out their message.
The media sat back, dumbstruck, pretending they were impartial during the whole campaign.
Who, from the major media, do you recall ever asking the tough questions?
No, they just sat back and dutifully reported Bush's answers despite the fact that all his statements were monotonously repetitious and provided no new information.
Your question about changing horses in midstream and the smears against Kerry? That was all part of the brilliant Rove strategy. And it was effective, but I bet he couldn't pull it off again.

Answer 6

I'm Canadian so obviously I didn't vote. I wanted Kerry to win at first but the more I heard from him the worse he got. So I think it was more a matter of people choosing the evil they knew rather than the unknown evil. Or the unknown unknows. lol. Oh good ol' Rummy. Anyway wasn't the second election just as rigged are the first? Don't worry you only have to bear with him for another year and a bit. Hang in there! If things get too bad you can crash on my couch.

Answer 7

Well he has the courage of his convictions. This may be the single most important aspect in an executive. Otherwise you wind up with someone just following conventional wisdom. Leadership requires otherwise. He is a man of sincere faith in Jesus. Sincere enough to give up alcohol after developing a problem. People who can publicly admit their need for a Savior despite the ridicule of the "educated class" are once again to be admired. I agreed with him on tax policy, judicial matters, foreign policy, and most other issues. His lack of fiscal restrain has been quite disappointing. Kerry was certainly unlikely to do better on that issue, spending as much but on other things.

That's the short list. I also voted for him in 2000

Answer 8

My wife and I voted for President Bush for quite a few reasons. The first was that we did not believe that John Kerry could protect us from another terrorists attack. His foreign policy was not in my opinion a strong one. Yes I agree Pres. Bush's foreign policy has flaws but it was better than Kerry's. John Kerry was weak. If I remember correctly he wanted to consult other countries and seek there permission before we ever went to war. Could you imagine if terrorists from Iran attacked the U.S. and Kerry called the French president to seek his permission for us to attack Iran. The biggest reason is I trust President Bush. He has made his mistakes but hell who hasn't. Even the great President Clinton screwed up. But when it comes down to it I trust his opinion and I support him. I know people don't like him and people will not like my answer but you asked the question and here is my answer.

Answer 9

The primary reason I voted for Bush a second time was 9-11. We needed to really do some damage and intimidate our potential enemies as a response to that attack and Democrats lack the guts to do it. Democrats / libs tend to try to fight a "civilized" war. They tend to half a** everything out of fear of offending someone. That's not how you keep people from attacking again. I felt Bush would do what needed to be done, and I believe he was off to a good start until he was sabotaged by the lib media.

Answer 10

My husband voted for him because he agrees with many of his politics and he is a hardcore republican...although he did vote for Perot...he really did not like John Kerry, and refused to change his mind no matter how much I tried! I canceled out his vote, but it really didn't do much good!

Oh what a wonderful America it would be if everyone took an interest in their country, did their homework and voted for who they really believed would make this country better. Everyone should vote...Republican, Democrat or Independent...take pride in our ability to choose! Get educated people!

Answer 11

I guess that the appearance of Bin-Laden in the news threating with a new attack made a big difference; the american people had to face a dilemma, vote for a guy that will defend us in the event of a war, that will seek for american welfare, whom cares about the importance of the army... or a guy that will withdrawn the troops when we have to face the enemy?... pretty clear that the electorate would choose the president of war!

I would've voted for Kerry, but I'm not american!