November 2, 2004: George W. Bush Is Re-Elected President

November 2, 2004: George W. Bush achieves -- due to the appearance of shenanigans in Ohio, I won't say "wins" -- a 2nd term as President, defeating the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Although Kerry was a rich liberal Catholic from Massachusetts with the initials JFK, and as a young man had met President John F. Kennedy, he was no Jack Kennedy.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney won 62 million popular votes, for 50.7 percent. Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, won 59 million, for 48.3 percent. This remains the only time between 1988 (when Bush's father did it) and 2020 that the Republican nominee for President got a majority of the popular vote.

Bush won 31 States for 286 Electoral Votes. Kerry won 19 States, plus the District of Columbia, for 251 EVs. One "faithless elector" from Minnesota voted for Edwards instead of Kerry.

(On July 6, the New York Post had a big front-page headline: "KERRY'S CHOICE." They said it was Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the House Minority Leader. A few hours after that headline was published, Kerry announced that his choice was Edwards. Not the Post's first sloppy piece of journalism, nor its last. In hindsight, Kerry would have been better off if he had chosen Gephardt.)

Kerry got 49.2 percent of the vote in Iowa, and 49.0 percent in New Mexico. Had he won both of those States, that would not have been enough to swing the Electoral Vote in his favor: It would still have been 274-263 Bush.

The key State turned out to be Ohio: Kerry got 48.7 percent there, and it was still not called by 12:00 Noon, Eastern Time, on November 3. Switching its 20 Electoral Votes, and no others, would have given Kerry a 271-266 win. But, despite the various media outlets' refusal to call it for Bush, Bush's lead was such that, at 1:50 PM, Kerry began a press conference, and said, "I have come to the conclusion that we cannot win in Ohio," and announced that he had called Bush, and offered his concession. Bush's final margin in Ohio was 118,601.

Kerry's concession, at Faneuil Hall, Boston

As with Florida in 2000, there were rumors of Republican shenanigans in what turned out to be the decisive State. Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State for Ohio, and a former Mayor of Cincinnati, was accused of manipulating the vote. Blackwell has never won another election: He was the Republican nominee for Governor in 2006, but got clobbered by Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland. As of November 2, 2022, he works for the anti-choice, anti-gay Family Research Council.

The closeness of the Presidential election was also reflected in the Congressional elections: The Republicans gained only 3 seats in the House of Representatives, and actually gained more seats in the Senate, 4, in each case boosting what had been small majorities. Among the newly-elected Senators was a Democratic State Senator from Illinois, whose speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention had gained a great deal of notice: Barack Obama. (UPDATE: Also elected was Republican John Thune of South Dakota. In 2025, Thune became the Senate Majority Leader.)

During the campaign, Bush ran as the man who was fighting to avenge the 9/11 attacks, while his fellow Republicans mocked Kerry for saying that Democratic leadership could "reduce terrorism to the level of a nuisance."

After 4 more years, the economy was in tatters, and the Iraq War was no closer to being "won" than it was on this day.

There were 3 debates. The 1st was held at the University of Miami on September 30, just a few miles from the "Brooks Brothers Riot" that turned out to be instrumental in Bush's 2000 emergence as President. Bush was asked why he invaded Iraq. He said, “The enemy attacked us.” Kerry reminded him, and reminded America, “Saddam Hussein did not attack us on September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden did.” At that moment, anybody who still planned to vote for Bush based on “national security” became, irrevocably, a fool.

As they did in 2000, the editors of Time magazine named Bush as their Person of the Year for 2004.

By 2016, after 8 years of Obama as President, with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in his 1st term, and then Kerry himself as Secretary of State in the 2nd term, Kerry had been proven correct: They had reduced terrorism, at least against American targets, at home and abroad, to the level of a nuisance.

In 2022, Kerry is President Joe Biden's Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, while Bush is getting a somewhat favorable reassessment: At least he wasn't as bad as Donald Trump.

UPDATE: Kerry left that job on March 6, 2024. He was 80 years old.

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November 2, 2004, as are all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. And the NHL team owners had locked the players out, so there would be no season in 2004-05. But there were 3 NBA games played:

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Houston Rockets, 87-79 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Sacramento Kings, 107-98 at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas. Dirk Nowitzki scored 33 points.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets, 89-78 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant scored 25 points.

April 22, 1971: Vietnam Veterans Against the War

April 22, 1971: The organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War demonstrates against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. More than 1,100 veterans marched across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to the Arlington National Cemetery gate, just beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Joining the procession were Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, at the time considered to be the front-runner for the Democratic nominee for President in 1972; and members of the House of Representatives, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm and Ogden Reid of New York; and Pete McCloskey and Don Edwards of California.

At the U.S. Capitol Building, some veterans tossed their medals onto the Capitol Steps. Among them was U.S. Navy veteran John Kerry. As he did so, he told the media, "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all." Among other decorations, Kerry had been awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart.

He testified before a U.S. Senate Committee, chaired by J. William Fulbright of Arkansas:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. 

America's liberals saw so much of what they believed about the war confirmed, and even, to their horror, exceeded. America's conservatives called Kerry a traitor.

In 1972, Kerry ran for Congress for a seat in Massachusetts, but lost. In 1976, he was named District Attorney of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1982, he was elected Lieutenant Governor. In 1984, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, re-elected in 1990, 1996 and 2002.

In 2004, he was nominated for President by the Democratic Party. The idea was that, after the Republican Party had smeared the patriotism of Democratic candidates in 2002, over their opposition to the Iraq War, they couldn't smear Kerry, a genuine war hero. They did, with a group named "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" lying about Kerry's activities in Vietnam. Even when their statements were proven to be lies, enough people believed them that Kerry narrowly lost the popular vote, and one State, Ohio, made the difference in the electoral vote.

The war continued to go badly, and Bush fell into the disgrace of history. Kerry, meanwhile, was re-elected to the Senate in 2008, and was appointed U.S. Secretary of State by President Barack Obama in 2013, serving for most of Obama's 2nd term.

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April 22, 1971 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4, but Willie Stargell hit a home run. Hank Aaron did not play.

* The Houston Astros beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks, in his last season, did not play.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Steve Carlton outpitched Jim Bunning. A year later, he would be traded to the Phillies, and be on his way to winning more games for them than Bunning.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the California Angels, 7-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with a walk.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were scheduled. The NBA Finals were between Games 1 and 2. The Milwaukee Bucks would beat the Baltimore Bullets in 4 straight. One game was played in the American Basketball Association's Playoffs: In Game 5 of the Western Division Finals, the Indiana Pacers beat the Utah Stars, 127-109 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis. However, the Stars won the series in 7 games, and then beat the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA Finals, in 7 games.