WASHINGTON, 8 November — As a result of the overwhelming Republican victory in Tuesday’s elections, many have expressed concern that the president will now have a freer hand on foreign policy. Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, does not agree. “Bush already had a free hand, as the Democrats were unable to block him on any issue, and they provided no meaningful challenge on civil rights issues, nor on the war with Iraq,” Zogby, a Democrat, told journalists yesterday.
Paul Wellstone was losing in the polls, said Zogby, until he decided to oppose the war. Then his support started to swell. “It was a message the other Democrats missed. (Soon-to-be-ex Senate Majority Leader Tom) Daschle surrendered to the president months ago and never understood that he, and his party, needed to be in opposition. The Democrats got it wrong, and that’s their mistake.”
Zogby said the Democrats allowed the Republicans to define the national agenda. “The Republican’s agenda was to get any issues off the front page that could hurt the Republicans: Enron, the economy, etc., and to focus on the war on terrorism and Baghdad.
“Democrats should have said, by threatening to attack Iraq, you put us at risk, and they didn’t. Politics is the art of knowing what is possible,” he said.
The Bush administration has shown itself to be ‘media masterful,’ explained Zogby. “Carl Rove, a White House strategist, is a political genius at message management. The problem is that the Democrats fell into this by letting him determine, and manage, the message.
“We have a 48 percent president, who is acting like an 80 percent president, which are the ratings he got after 9/11. But the Democrats are letting him get away with it. Look at the mastery of how the Harvey Pitt scandal was handled. He resigned on the day of elections because they knew it would be buried by election news.”
Regarding the Arab American community, Zogby said it was a constructive year. “Seventy percent of our candidates won.”
“We actually fared well this year, despite the setback of 9/11, and dealing with the crisis that impacted our community.
“As a result of the Nov. 5 elections, we have a governor, a senator and four members of Congress, and of legislators around the country. We did very well in local elections.”
Asked if he thought the war on terrorism would affect the Arab American candidates, Zogby said no. “We had two or three examples where Arab American ethnicity was used as an issue, and I’m pleased to say it was slammed down hard in every case. The fact is that this year, as opposed to 1996, we found that Arab baiting does not work.”
Zogby disagreed with commentators that say the anti-terrorist campaign overshadowed all else, and is interconnected with the war on Iraq. “All Bush got in these elections was breathing space. “The State Department, the uniformed military, our allies, and the Arab world — there are too many unanswered questions, including how will you conduct this war and have it make sense.
“The American people don’t want a war on Iraq, and it is our job to prove this,” he said.
“You can read the results of yesterday’s elections two ways. People are afraid, and the Democrats did nothing to help put Homeland Security in place,” Janet McElligott, political consultant, and former staffer to the Bush Sr. White House and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Arab News.
Fear was an overriding consideration, she said. “The sniper in Washington DC — just days before the elections — drove Sept. 11 home again. Initially, don’t forget, people were afraid that the sniper would turn out to be another terrorist attack.”
The president was successful because while out on the campaign trail, McElligott said, he focused relentlessly on Homeland Security and foreign security issues. “He didn’t talk about the economy because he knew he couldn’t win on it.”
McElligott said there was no overriding theme in this cycle of elections, except for the war on terrorism, and the Democrats failed because they did not force the economy to the forefront.
“This president made it look, for those back in the home states, as though he was their friend. What this does for Bush is that it gives him a Congress full of people who owe him,” said McElligott.
