WASHINGTON, 10 November 2005 — Iraq, Katrina, CIA leak, Harriet Miers. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse for President Bush. Or so Republicans thought.
The president put his political prestige on the line in the Virginia governor’s race and lost Tuesday when the candidate he supported, and visited during a last-minute campaign stop, was soundly defeated. Joyous Democrats said the Virginia race, as well as an equally contentious Democratic victory in New Jersey, prove that Bush is a political toxin for Republicans.
“This portends really well for the future,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign committee. “Unless George Bush reverses his polices and reaches to the middle you’re going to see many more victories like this.”
Democrats said the results were the first positive signs that a battle for the 2006-midterm elections in the House and Senate could help re-establish a Democratic majority.
Polls had Republican Jerry Kilgore tied with Democrat Tim Kaine as they headed into the final day when Bush flew from Panama to Virginia to stump for Kilgore. It was a risky decision, ensuring that the president would be blamed for a Kilgore defeat. White House officials said Bush might as well go because in the current environment he would be blamed anyhow.
In the only two governors’ races in the US yesterday, Democrats emerged triumphant. In New Jersey, John Corzine trounced his Republican opponent, Douglas Forrester. As a result of these two hotly contested elections, Republicans now can no longer depend on the pull of their president, their party, or even negative campaign ads.
It was a bad night all around for Republicans. In California, voters dealt Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a stinging rebuke by rejecting four ballot initiatives aimed at reshaping the state government.
Pundits say that Kaine rode to office on current Virginian governor Mark Warner’s coattails, and Kaine’s success could now mark the launch of Warner’s presidential aspirations — as Warner is barred by state law from seeking a second term.
The election results “mean the people were willing accept Mark Warner’s recommendation and not willing to accept George Bush’s recommendation, Larry Sabato, a political scientists at the University of Virginia told the press.
But many also criticized Kilgore’s vicious attack ads, that many people, Republicans included, said led to tit-for-tat attacks.
Republicans can, however, take some solace in the fact that Republican Bill Boling won a narrow victory yesterday in the states’ race for lieutenant governor, beating one of Northern Virginia’s best-known Democrats, former congresswoman Leslie Byrne.
And in New York, the city’s moderate Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg, was re-elected as mayor.
Pundits say Tuesday’s elections are not real evidence that voters were sending Bush a message in Virginia or New Jersey, but the results did increase Republican anxieties about the 2006 midterm elections, when much more will be at stake. Some GOP officials blamed Bush’s political slump for a low GOP turnout.
Elsewhere, in a ruling reflecting the resurgence of religious conservatism, a key US state has given Charles Darwin and his evolution theory a shove, forcing them to share the classroom with Bible-inspired creationist theories.
By a vote of 6 to 4, the Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday adopted new science teaching guidelines, under which evolutionary concepts must be presented to students alongside theories that life could have had divine origins.
“Regarding the scientific theory of biological evolution, the curriculum standards call for students to learn about the best evidence for modern evolutionary theory, but also to learn about areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of the theory,” the board said.
It insisted it had based its decision on “credible scientific testimony” about debates among specialists about key aspects of Darwin’s theory, which holds that all species populating Planet Earth have evolved by themselves over millions or years, adapting to existing natural conditions.
The theory has been under fierce attack from proponents of the so-called theory of “intelligent design” that is largely based on the Bible’s Book of Genesis.
“This is a big victory for the students of Kansas, providing them with full-disclosure of the scientific debate about Darwinism going on between scientists and in the scientific literature, so we’re very pleased,” said Casey Luskin, a top official with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle, Washington-based policy group that promotes “intelligent design.” But many teachers and members of the scientific community were appalled.
In 2002, Ohio became the first state to require students to learn about “evidence” critical of Darwinism when it adopted a guideline insisting that school students “critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” Similar standards have since been adopted in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Mexico, according to people familiar with the matter.
Elsewhere, voters in the US state of Texas approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage Tuesday, a move heralded by social conservatives and the state’s Republican leadership.
Early returns showed the amendment was passing by a wide margin of about 70-30.
With the vote, Texas, home to President George W. Bush, became the 19th US state to outlaw same-sex marriage in a state constitution.
Opponents, citing an existing law that already bans gay marriage, had called the measure mean-spirited.
Texas is one of 38 states in which legislatures have passed statutes outlawing gay marriage. Tuesday’s election took the prohibition one step further by enshrining the Texas ban in the state constitution — which required voter approval.
Proponents said amendment was necessary to strengthen the law so that no court could ever nullify it.
“It stops the courts from overturning it. That’s the bottom line,” said state lawmaker Warren Chisum, the Republican who sponsored the amendment.
“No activist judge can come in and reverse the marriage statute in the state of Texas.”
— Additional input from agencies
