Bush pledges to ‘reach out’

Iraq, taxes will be 2nd-term focus

Washington ? President Bush claimed a re-election mandate Wednesday after a record 59 million Americans chose him over Democrat John Kerry and voted to expand Republican control of Congress as well. He pledged to pursue his agenda on taxes and Iraq while seeking “the broad support of all Americans.”

Kerry conceded defeat in make-or-break Ohio rather than launch a legal fight reminiscent of the contentious Florida recount of four years ago. “I hope that we can begin the healing,” the Massachusetts senator said.

“I will never forget you, and I’ll never stop fighting for you,” Kerry promised during his speech inside the cradle of democracy, Faneuil Hall in Boston.

“I did my best to express my vision and my hopes for America,” he told supporters in the old civic meetinghouse, standing below a Revolutionary-era painting titled “Liberty and Union Now and Forever.”

Claiming a second term denied his father, George H.W. Bush, the president struck a conciliatory tone, too. “A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation,” he said, speaking directly to Kerry’s supporters.

“To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it,” he said. “I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”

It was a warm-and-fuzzy close to one of the longest, most negative presidential races in a generation.

Bush didn’t use the word mandate, but Vice President Dick Cheney did, and the president’s intention was clear as he ticked off a familiar list of second-term goals: overhaul the tax code and Social Security at home while waging war in Iraq and elsewhere to stem terror.

Bush stands to reshape the federal judiciary, starting with an aging Supreme Court that voted 5-4 to award him Florida four years ago. In all branches of government, the GOP now holds a solid, if not permanent, ruling majority.

President Bush receives a phone call in the Oval Office of the White House from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Kerry conceded his defeat Wednesday morning.

Bush’s vote totals were the biggest ever, and his slice of the vote, 51 percent, made him the first president to claim a majority since 1988 when his father won 53 percent against Democrat Michael Dukakis.

Like Dukakis, Kerry is a Massachusetts politician who was labeled a liberal by a Bush. This president also called Kerry a flip-flopping opportunist who would fight feebly against terror.

None of that rancor was evident Wednesday, when Kerry called Bush to concede the race. He told Bush the country needed to be united, and Bush agreed. But the numbers suggest the country is deeply split.

Bush’s victory ensures Republican dominance of virtually every quarter of the U.S. political system for years to come — the White House, Congress and the federal judiciary. Democrats pored over election results and sadly determined that the GOP base was bigger, more rural, suburban and Hispanic than they had ever imagined.

The Hispanic vote

Party strategists had longed hoped to supplant their political losses in the Midwest and South with growth in the Hispanic-rich Western states, but those plans were put in doubt Tuesday night. Exit polls suggested that Bush had increased his minority share of the Hispanic vote since 2000.

One-third of Hispanics said they were born-again Christians, and nearly 20 percent listed moral values as their top issue, suggesting they have more in common with Republicans than Democrats.

Young voters didn’t increase their turnout as Democrats had hoped. Neither did blacks or union members, two keys to the party’s base.

Bush, meanwhile, saw a surge in rural and evangelical voters, according to strategists on both sides. The rural vote, once reliably Democratic, swelled in size and supported Bush over Kerry.

Tussle in Ohio

In Ohio, exit polls suggested the rural vote increased from 15 percent of the electorate in 2000 to 25 percent on Tuesday. Rural voters backed Bush over Kerry 60 percent to 40 percent.

In Ohio and Florida, the two most important states Election Day, Democrats said they met their turnout targets, only to see Bush’s forces trounce them. They said state ballot measures to ban gay marriage might have driven GOP voters to the polls.

The most stinging defeat was in Ohio, which may no longer be considered a swing state. With 232,000 jobs lost under Bush and state voters uneasy about Iraq, it was as ripe as it would ever be for Democrats, strategists said.

Ohio’s 20 electoral votes gave Bush 279 in the Associated Press count, nine more than the 270 needed for victory. Kerry had 252 electoral votes, with Iowa’s seven unsettled.

Bush beat Kerry by more than 3 million votes.