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Bush Faces Formidable Test After Election
After a gracious concession by Vice President Al Gore, Texas Governor George W. Bush finally claimed the US presidency Wednesday night, pledging to bring the country together with his defeated rival and move past the bitterness and partisanship of the five-week battle in Florida.
The president-elect, whose victory sealed by a splintered US Supreme Court that on Tuesday night blocked any chance of further recounts in Florida, spoke from the House chamber of the Texas Capital before an audience of Republicans and Democrats.
"Our nation must rise above a house divided," Bush claimed in reaching out to try to heal the wounds of the long drawn-out presidential election. He said he agreed with Gore to do best to heal the country after hard fight.
"I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation, " said the country's soon-to-be 43rd president. "I hope the long wait of the last five weeks will heighten a desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the recent past."
An hour earlier, Gore, the winner of the popular vote but three votes shy of an Electoral College majority, formally bowed out of the presidential race. Speaking from his ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, Gore said, "I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside."
Gore noted his strong disagreement with the country's highest court decision that ended his campaign. But he added that he accepted "the finality of this outcome," which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College.
Bush used his speech not only to call for reconciliation, but also to outline the agenda he hopes to pursue as president, one that closely followed the themes that dominated his two-year presidential campaign. He promised better public schools, Social Security and Medicare reform, a bipartisan foreign policy, and " broad, fair and fiscally responsible tax relief."
The man who will become president of the United States next month campaigned as "a uniter, not a divider," but he faces a huge challenge in trying to govern the country after an election that left the Senate in a 50-50 tie and majority Republicans with a razor-thin margin in the House of Representatives.
As he did throughout the campaign, Bush promised Tuesday night to change the tone in Washington and to work cooperatively with Democrats. But the circumstances of his victory will put that promise to a severe test. The messy conclusion to the presidential election left many Democrats embittered. The narrowness of Bush's victory leaves him weakened as he plunges into his transition and groping for a mandate as president.
George Edwards, a political scientist connected to the elder George Bush's presidential library at Texas A&M University, said, "This Bush will face a very difficult situation," because of the way he won -- without even a plurality of the popular vote -- and with his party losing strength in Congress and the state capitals. "He's coming into a highly polarized situation," Edwards said. "It doesn't give him any leverage and he's not likely to have a honeymoon."
Bush is the first winner since 1888 to gain an Electoral College majority while losing the popular vote nationwide. Nationally, the Democratic vice president outpolled the Texas governor by more than 300,000 votes -- 50,158,094 to 49,820,518. Bush won the election by capturing the needed state-based 270 electoral votes with Florida's 25 putting him over the top.
Bush also has lost valuable time in assembling a new administration, with half of the 10-week transition period absorbed by the battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes.
In winning the presidency as he did, Bush likely will be forced to govern from a posture that is far more centrist, risking anger from the conservative wing of his party. Many Republicans fear that, however Bush tries to govern, they face a mid-term backlash that could cost them control of the House or Senate or both in 2002.
Bush's presidency will mark the second father-son presidential combination in American history, following John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The elder Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton and Gore in 1992.
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