Think America's shifting to the right? Think again.

Drifting Right? Wrong!

"The United States is a moderate to conservative country," one journalist firmly concluded in the wake of the recent election, noting President George W. Bush's narrow win as evidence of a national "drift to the right".

Whoa. Hold on.

Didn't the Democratic Party just run John Kerry, a Massachussets liberal who protested the Vietnam War, against an incumbent war president?

Doesn't John Kerry have the most liberal voting record in the Senate?

Didn't John Kerry promise to raise taxes on the rich, increase federal funding of education and health care, and end the expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal?

And didn't John Kerry get 48% of the popular vote?

And didn't another 1% go to Ralph Nader, an even more liberal candidate?

So let me get this straight - 49% of the vote went to blatant liberals and all of a sudden we live in a "moderate to conservative country" drifting inevitably to the right? Help me out here - I don't get it.

Of course, Mr. Bush is claiming a "mandate" and many in the media are parroting that claim - even though Mr. Bush's margin of victory was the slimmest for an incumbent since 1916.

Fortunately, Americans know better. In a Gallup poll Wednesday night, only 30 percent agreed with the statement that Mr. Bush "has a mandate to advance the Republican Party's agenda." Nearly two-thirds - 63 percent - said he should "emphasize programs that both parties support."

What I think is that the priorities of Mr. Bush and the neoconservatives are totally out of line with the priorities of most Americans.

I think the Democrats lost because they still haven't done a good enough job of getting our message across to Middle America.

Don't believe me? Before you throw in the towel and move to Canada, consider the following:

In April of these year, 63% of Americans thought that high-income individuals were paying too little in taxes. In 2003, in a FOX poll (yes, FOX!) 61% said the Bush tax cuts had not helped their family.

Just this month (November 2004!), an Associated Press poll found 66% of Americans would rather balance the budget than cut taxes. And in the same poll, 55% said they would rather spend more on "education, health care, and economic development" than balance the budget.

So most Americans feel education and health care programs are important, tax cuts are a low priority, and the rich should pay more.

Wait - wasn't it John Kerry who wanted to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act, extend health insurance to 95% of Americans, and repeal the tax cut on the highest income bracket?

Mr. Bush, on the other hand, has made it a top priority to make his tax cuts permanent. Meanwhile he's run up the biggest deficit in real dollars since - well, since Ronald Reagan.

So how did Mr. Bush hold on to the White House? Was it the guns issue? We sure love our guns, don't we?

Well, remember that assault rifle ban that Mr. Bush quietly let expire under pressure from the National Rifle Association? 71% of Americans favored continuing the ban, in a Harriss poll taken just before the expiration.

The same month, 60% favored "stricter gun control". Gallup polls each year from 2001-2004 consistently found that 15% or less of Americans wanted "less strict" gun laws.

What about abortion? It is true that Americans are deeply divided on this issue, with 44% saying they are "more pro-choice" and 47% "more pro-life", with fairly similar splits for various other ways of framing the issue. But these numbers haven't changed much in polls going back several years - there is no clear trend in either direction.

And, 66% of Americans support a woman's right to have an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, according to a 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. An Associated Press poll just after the recent election showed that 61% support upholding the Roe v. Wade decision.

I wonder how many of these people are aware that the Republican Party Platform (p. 84) calls for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion nationwide, with no exceptions. And Mr. Bush, who is very much in debt to the Religious Right for his re-election, has defended that part of the Republican platform.

So why did George W. Bush take the White House? And what can Democrats do better?

Click here for some ideas about what went wrong.

Click here for some proposals for how Democrats can go on the offensive even as the minority party.

Please post your comments.