CNN political analyst Bill Schneider, appearing as the most recent Militon S. Eisenhower Symposium speaker this year, spoke Monday about the possible reasons behind President Bush's reelection.
Schneider - who has been CNN's senior political analyst for 13 years and has held professorships at Harvard and Brandeis Universities - began his address in Shriver Hall by clarifying his position as a nonpartisan observer.
"I am not an advocate," Schneider said. "My job is to say, 'That's what's going on, and here's what it means.'"
Schneider added that, instead of gathering facts as reporters do or forming opinions as commentators do, political analysts try to explain the rationale behind results.
The largest gain on the Bush front, Schneider said, was an increase in the female vote. According to Schneider, while most single females tend to vote Democratic, the Republican Party made significant gains among married women, the so-called "security moms."
In addition, Schneider said, Bush trumped even Ronald Reagan in receiving the largest Latino vote of any Republican presidential candidate in history.
Schneider continued by analyzing various shortcomings in Kerry's candidacy, pointing out that although Kerry was the first Roman Catholic presidential candidate since former President John F. Kennedy, Kennedy received 80 percent of the Catholic vote during his presidential bid while Kerry's percentage was significantly lower.
In fact, Schneider said, most of the Catholic vote went to President Bush.
Schneider also said that despite this factor, Kerry did succeed in one of his biggest undertakings - he got the majority of the young vote.
"However, while young voters voted in record numbers, so did everyone else," Schneider said.
He added that, while President Bush may have received the largest popular vote of any winning candidate in history, Kerry received the largest popular vote of any losing candidate in history.
Schneider also addressed the role of the political analyst during election time. The most important question that analysts asked voters, Schneider discovered, was, "How often do you go to church?"
According to Schneider, frequent churchgoers tend to vote Republican, while more secular citizens tend to vote Democratic. He continued to say that the importance of religion among the American people began to grow during the Reagan administration and has since evolved into the current struggle between the secular and the religious.
Schneider identified the second most important vote-predictor as, "Do you have a gun in your house?"
Describing the recent shift from blue to red in the state of West Virginia, he pointed out that Bush has won this state in the last two elections most likely because of the fact that 72 percent of the voters own guns.
"[Gun control] has become a defining issue in American politics," Schneider said.
He added that these two questions show that despite common belief, the pressing issue between the two parties today is not economic status, but much more about moral values.
"The division that divides Americans is not class - it's culture," Schneider said. "Red versus Blue."
Schneider quoted former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, saying that a candidate must be "right for the times."
Outlining the elections of Presidents Kennedy through Bush, Schneider demonstrated how these qualities change from election to election.
"[Bush] had a quality that Americans valued - good character," Schneider said, adding that, unlike the popular perception of former President Clinton, George W. Bush was "a man of honor and decency."
Reflecting on Bush's success in his first term, Schneider looked back to his 2000 campaign promise "to be a uniter, and not a divider."
"[Kerry] did have a chance to win," Schneider said, based on the failure of George W. Bush to keep the country united for more than a year after the attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
However, Schneider added that during his campaign, Kerry tried to be a uniter, but failed in selling that image.
"It is difficult for people to see you as a uniter if they first see you as wavering and inconsistent," Schneider said, adding that the American people saw Kerry as a "flip-flopper" before they saw him as anything else.
"Bush did have a unifying issue - the War on Terror," Schneider said, "and that's what he ran on."
Schneider then looked forward to the President's second term, predicting that Bush's fundamental cultural differences with the majority of American secularists will be his most difficult obstacle in uniting the country.
Regarding the next four years, Schneider speculates that anything could happen.
"Bush will have problems if the Iraq situation doesn't improve," Schneider said. He added that the biggest test will lie in the promise that Bush made four years ago to unite the American people.
