In Victory's Glow

By NANCY GIBBS

Tueday was the night the ghosts died in the Bush White House. There was the ghost of his last campaign, which Bush lost among voters but won in the court. There was the ghost of his father's last campaign, when even winning a war was not enough to earn a second term. And then there was the ghost of Tuesday afternoon, when the entire Bush campaign team was haunted by the possibility that they had got it all wrong, as the first exit polls came in and nothing, but nothing, was going their way.

When it was finally over, the President who had become a radical champion of democracy's power to change the world became the living symbol of how it works. He made his decisions and moved on; the voters made theirs, in one of the most extraordinary displays of political passion seen in a generation. About 120 million voted, 15 million more than in 2000, with

Bush beating Senator John Kerry by about 51% to 48.5%. He became the first President since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote, he gained seats in both houses of Congress, and for good measure, he knocked off not just the Democratic nominee but the party's Senate leader as well. The love-hate presidency of George W. Bush was neither an accident of ideology nor a product of these times. Asked as he left the Crawford, Texas, polling station about the polarized feelings he inspires in voters, Bush replied, "I take that as a compliment. It means I'm willing to take a stand." He saw his task as leading and never looking back, and only that night did he learn whether enough people had decided to fall into line behind him to allow him to carry on. In a triumphant speech at the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C., after a long and winding election night, Bush declared victory. "America has spoken, and I am humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens. With that trust comes a duty to serve all Americans, and I will do my best to fulfill that duty every day as your President."

Moments earlier, Kerry had stood before his supporters at Boston's Faneuil Hall, where his campaign began. To stamp out any delusions, he was very clear about the finality of his decision: "We cannot win this election," he said. Then, his voice breaking, he reminded his supporters that after an election, "we all wake up as Americans" and called for the healing to commence.

The kid who was born serious, who was greeted on campus with kazoos buzzing Hail to the Chief, who was tagged on national TV at age 27 as a future President, who marinated in the Senate among 99 other aspiring Presidents for 19 years before launching a bid for the White House that this time a year ago saw him barely twitching at about 10% in the polls, had shown exactly the kind of toughness his opponents claimed he lacked. He mortgaged his house, recast his team, renovated virtually every position he had ever taken and shook the grave dust off his suit several times before arriving at history's door. And then it closed in his face on a day when for a moment it had seemed to blow wide open.

In the end, an election that was supposed to be about all the ways we are divided at least brought us together at 193,000 polling places in democracy's messy leap of faith. Turnout was huge even in states where the result was assured. In Ohio the polls closed at 7:30, but the lines were so long that people were still voting at midnight. Some people admitted they just did not want to face their neighbors or their children at the end of the day and say they had not bothered to show up. Others said if you don't vote, you can't complain and did not want to be mute at a time like this. In the end, polls suggested that the single issue that mattered most was not the Iraq war or terrorism, not the economy, but the questions of values that simmered beneath the headlines throughout the campaign.

If the outcome still showed a public divided, it produced a government somewhat less so. Thanks to their sweeping victories Tuesday, the Republicans ensured that the very real challenges facing Bush in a second term--from Iraq as it heads toward elections, to entitlements as they drift toward insolvency, to Supreme Court appointments and the social issues that most deeply divide the public--would be addressed by a party with a rare monopoly of power in all three branches of government and a mandate, however slim, that did not exist four years ago. All of which points to the great mystery ahead: With re-election no longer the organizing principle of George Bush's presidency, what will guide his next four years, when the only judge left is history?

For a president who loves the game and knew this was his last campaign, Bush sounded on Tuesday morning like a man at peace. "This election is in the hands of the people," he said after he voted, "and I feel very comfortable with that." He was host of a gin-rummy tournament on Air Force One as he headed from Crawford back to the White House to wait out the results. It was on the plane that strategist Karl Rove started calling around to get the results of early exit polls. But the line kept breaking down. The only information that came through as the plane descended was a BlackBerry message from an aide that simply read: "Not good." Not long afterward, Rove got a more detailed picture and told the President and senior aides the bad news. Florida Governor Jeb Bush had been saying the state was looking good, and the Bush team had expected to be ahead in Ohio. But Kerry was leading everywhere. "I wanted to throw up," said an aide onboard. Bush was more philosophical: "Well, it is what it is," he told adviser Karen Hughes. On the ground in Arlington, Va., that afternoon, chief strategist Matthew Dowd was walking around Bush campaign headquarters looking like a "scientist whose formulas were all wrong," said a top Bush staff member. Dowd had designed the strategy for targeting voters, and the exit polls were undermining his every theory. It would take him six long hours to crack the code. When the actual vote counts started coming in at 8 p.m., Dowd noticed that in South Carolina, Virginia and Florida the numbers were what the Republicans expected them to be; the President was outperforming the exit polls. "We've got to go talk to the press. The exit polls are wrong," Dowd said.

The emotional route of Kerry's day passed Bush's somewhere halfway, traveling from wild hope to stunned despair. After one last dawn campaign visit, a triple-witching photo op on the Iowa-Wisconsin-Minnesota border, Kerry flew back to Boston for his ritual Election Day lunch at the Union Oyster House. Superstitious, he wore his lucky Red Sox cap, carried an Ohio buckeye in one pocket and a clover in the other and refused to let his speechwriters work on election-night speeches of any flavor. But he wasn't relying entirely on voodoo. He spent the afternoon doing satellite interviews in key markets, 38 interviews over four hours.

All along, the Republicans predicted they would beat the Democrats in the final 72 hours because the Dems were relying on hired help whereas the G.O.P. was running its ground game with volunteers. At Bush campaign rallies throughout the year, anyone who came through security was asked to register. If they were already registered, they were asked to volunteer. Those who had already volunteered were scheduled to go on buses after the President left so that they could walk precincts and knock on doors. The chance to get close enough to shake the President's hand was not reserved for big donors, as in the past. The ones who got the lucky bracelet that allowed them into that proximity were the ones who promised to work in the phone bank after the event.

The G.O.P. knew that every last disciple would be needed because the Democrats had so much money to spend this time. The liberal 527 America Coming Together (ACT), which overall spent $125 million registering voters and turning them out, had 30,000 paid foot soldiers in Ohio alone, making ACT, for a day, the state's biggest employer. And alongside ACT was an army of free-lancers and first-timers and recruits from every Democratic activist group, matching the Republican faithful step for step.

For all the warnings of turmoil on Election Day, most people were on their best behavior. Even at war, there was civility. In New Mexico a law student policing the polls for the Democrats lent her cell phone to her Republican counterpart. In Merrimack, N.H., volunteers from MoveOn.org passed out hot cocoa to activists holding signs outside the polling place--Republicans and Democrats alike. "We might be a battleground state," said voter-protection volunteer Chris L'Estrange in Des Moines, Iowa, "but there's not much of a battle." Florida state troopers suspended safety checkpoints for the day to avoid any accusations of trying to suppress turnout.

For weeks, both campaigns had suspected it could all come down to Ohio, a state no Republican has ever lost and still won the White House. More than two-thirds of precincts were using punch-card ballots, with their potentially hanging chads. So Democrats acquired 611 punch-card machines, some of them discarded from Florida and Michigan and others found on eBay, so volunteers could hold little seminars outside key precincts on how to vote correctly. Republicans dispatched vote counters to every county election board so they would give the campaign an early read about where Bush might be lagging. Back at campaign headquarters in Washington, the information streamed toward operatives sitting at laptops watching their maps change color. A county colored blue meant that Bush was doing better than he had in 2000. The Ohio map just kept getting more blue. In some places it bled dark blue, almost purple, indicating areas where Republicans had improved 10% from four years ago.

Three times over the course of the day, poll watchers from both parties could enter precincts and scan the lists of voters to see who had turned out and who had not. Then they called their war rooms so volunteers--the Republicans called them flushers--could call the voters who hadn't yet cast a ballot, give a pep talk, offer a ride. In Franklin County the board of elections handed out more than 800 cell phones to the nonpartisan precinct judges there so they could call the board to report any problems or ask questions. In the end "the good people of central Ohio have kept their cool heads," said Doug Preisse, chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party.

Remaining cool through the night was a little harder for the candidates. Bush was with his father in the White House residence, having highly technical conversations about turnout models by phone with campaign manager Ken Mehlman. Bush wanted to know who was on talk radio making his case and whether everything was being done to win every possible vote. "He's like a political director who is President," said a Bush official. Once it was clear that the early rumors of a Kerry sweep were all wrong, the networks were playing it very safe about calling states. The job of declaring who would be the next President--and when the country might know--would fall to the campaigns.

In the old family dining room of the residence, Rove set up his computers. Bush called him regularly to ask about what was happening in certain precincts and districts. Finally, after midnight, the President was on the phone with his communications director, Dan Bartlett, discussing Ohio. Bartlett explained why the networks would be reluctant to call the key swing state. Bush then said, "Well, they just called it," although only NBC and Fox had. The room erupted into cheers. Bartlett held out the phone so Bush could hear. "Congratulations, Mr. President," Bartlett said, "You won the presidency." But it would be nearly 15 more hours before the President could come out and say so himself.

Bush was ahead in Ohio by 130,000 votes. But about the same number of provisional ballots--given to voters whose eligibility had been challenged--remained unopened. In elections gone by, that gap would still have been enough to put the state in Bush's column, but most networks exercised uncharacteristic caution.

As the night wore on, Bush officials spoke informally to the Kerry camp, urging Kerry to concede. Kerry advisers replied that their candidate would come to his own conclusion in good time. Undeterred, Mehlman reached out to John McCain's advisers, trying to get the Arizona Senator to call on Kerry to give in. McCain's advisers said Kerry would come to the decision on his own, as he ultimately did.

Shortly after dawn, Kerry advisers gathered one last time to go over the Ohio math. By 9:30, the conclusion was clear: Kerry simply did not have the numbers. Campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill called Kerry at his town house. Within 10 minutes, he had called her back to say he agreed. At 11 a.m., Kerry called Bush to concede. He congratulated the President and urged him to unify the country. Bush called Kerry "an admirable and worthy opponent."

What finally swayed those near mythical voters who managed to make it until Tuesday without making up their minds? The weight that voters attached to values suggests that Rove's single-minded attention to the goal of turning out 4 million more evangelical voters than in 2000 may have paid off. On the other hand, there were voters like Jeffrey Wilson, 21, a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa, a gay Catholic raised in a conservative family but registered as a Democrat, who finally went with Bush. It wasn't the war that mattered. "I think they're both for stepping things up and cleaning up the mess we've created," he said. Instead it was a matter of character. "I just don't feel that I really trust John Kerry to do what he says he's going to do." For Andrea Levin, 39, of Seattle, who voted for Al Gore in 2000, it was the return of Osama bin Laden, who released a videotape taunting Bush four days before Election Day, that made the difference. "When he made his presentation, looking all spiffed up, and condemned the President's foreign policy, I saw that as a clear sign that I should vote for Bush."

Historians will have an easy time arguing that the race was always Bush's to lose; he scarcely ever ran behind, from Labor Day on. A country will seldom discharge a Commander in Chief during wartime, particularly one who had sustained a higher level of approval for longer than any modern U.S. President. Economist Ray Fair devised a model that weighs inflation and growth rates, and by his formula, Bush looked on track to win 58% of the popular vote. And he was running against a New England Senator so stiff, he creaked, when no non-Southern Democrat has won in 44 years.

So consider the obstacles Bush overcame and the rules that were broken by his victory. Since the country previously met at the polls, voters have encountered a record deficit, job losses, airport shoe searches, rising bankruptcies and bruising battles over stem-cell research and the definition of marriage. On the eve of Election Day, fully 55% of voters said the country was moving in the wrong direction. Only 49% approved of the job the President was doing, and anything below 50% is supposed to be fatal to an incumbent. A war that Bush promised would cost no more than $50 billion a year is running at nearly three times that. He was attacked by well-organized and well-funded detractors who described him as a liar, a fraud, a drug abuser, a warmonger, an incurious zealot, an agent of the Saudis, a puppet of his goblin Vice President. And he faced an opponent with a long record of public service, a shiny record from a war Bush had avoided and a Democratic base suffused with a cold and implacable hatred, a group that had never been so united--not over the war, not over tax policy or job losses or health care but simply in the purpose of bringing this presidency it so despised to an end.

Bush says the war on terrorism is not a clash of civilizations, but this campaign was, by his careful design. He never really pretended to have much to say to Democrats beyond I will keep you safe. He relied largely instead on inspiring those who agreed with him already, who don't want to see gay couples kissing on the evening news, think stem-cell research has been oversold and believe abortion on demand is a sin. Even Republicans who disagreed with him on one or more issues--the fiscal conservatives who prefer less extravagant government spending, the civil libertarians who would like a less intrusive Patriot Act--were still prepared to side with him. His 97% approval rate within his party surpassed even Ronald Reagan's. Bush plainly understood that his best weapon against Kerry was less what Bush did than who he was. You may disagree with me, he said at every stop, but you know where I stand.

That message alone was meant to be a source of comfort, particularly since he was also telling voters that everything had changed since the last time they elected a President and no amount of wishful thinking could turn the calendar back. After a happy and lucky decade, the U.S. is locked in a war that will last the rest of our lives. "The outcome of this election will set the direction of the war against terror," Bush said Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich. Of Kerry, he argued that if you don't even admit it's a war, you can't be trusted to fight it. Critics who saw his faith in contagious democracy as naive may have missed the point that the American people have always been attracted to the idea. At the very least, voters may not punish a President for placing such hope in the principles they value most.

Having said that, surveys had consistently found that a majority of voters were ready to fire Bush--provided they had an acceptable alternative. That suggests how much Bush's success owes to Kerry's failure. The Senator never needed to be as likable as Bush to win, as Kerry proved when he defeated the popular Governor William Weld in their 1996 Senate race. Kerry just needed to be plausible. His supporters saw his serial explanations of his Iraq-war position as a mark of thoroughness and subtlety; opponents were alarmed by a sense that he was guided by no core beliefs but was only searching for a politically safe place to land. Bush was proud of setting a vision and then delegating even big decisions to a small group of advisers; Kerry was famously surrounded by enough advisers to fill a small liberal-arts college but still spent four weeks agonizing over the right font for his campaign logo. Kerry's resume of elite schools, a prosecutor's office and the U.S. Senate honored his deliberative process; the presidential campaign proved too fast for it, and Bush never missed a chance to portray Kerry as the hollow man, ever expedient, always cautious, incapable of taking a stand and sticking to it.

Bush needed to demonize Kerry to make him an unacceptable alternative. The strategy carried some risk: negative ads over the summer portrayed Kerry as such a ridiculous, windsurfing, flip-flopping fop that when the cartoon version of Kerry didn't show up for the debates, Bush suffered in contrast. It was a rare miscalculation by a politician who understands well the value of low expectations. But overall, Bush succeeded in making Kerry appear an elitist emphatically defending moderation at a time when nothing less than passion would do. In Boston at their convention, the Democrats held a tasteful remembrance of 9/11. A month later in New York City, the Republicans unleashed a battle cry, and the contrast was plain: the party of victims vs. the party of warriors.

The past four years have rewired our politics in ways that guaranteed this election would be a historic one, whatever the outcome. The presidency simply matters more. To the delight of his supporters and the outrage of his opponents, George W. Bush governed as though he had won a mandate four years ago and, through his radical assertion of presidential power, showed what a difference it makes who is in the White House. With Congress all but dysfunctionally deadlocked, the spotlight for four years has focused entirely on the Executive Branch.

But in a second Bush term, Congress may be even more bitterly divided, making any legislative agenda hard to achieve. The initial goodwill that produced the No Child Left Behind Act is gone. The post-9/11 sense of national unity that produced the Patriot Act is gone. Bush has recently relied on disciplined party-line votes and seldom even pretended to try to reach a compromise with Democrats. He has admitted that this state of affairs is a disappointment, given his promise to unite and not divide. In an interview with TIME in August, he blamed the rancor on entrenched special interests, as though he were more victim than leader. Washington, he said, turned out to be a nastier place than Texas. But it is natural when the lines are so tightly drawn that neither side wants to hand the other a victory that it can take to the voters next time around.

For Kerry's supporters, there is some consolation that Bush will have to take responsibility for finishing what he started in Iraq. For Bush's supporters, there is an obligation to recognize that the intense effort of the other side was as much an expression of love of country as any pledge, hymn or flag. For people on both sides, there is relief that the day affirmed the sustaining virtue of American democracy. However fierce the battle and however high the stakes, on Election Day citizens go to the polls, close a curtain and cast their vote--and then go home to honor the outcome because we have only one President at a time. --Reported by John F. Dickerson with Bush; Perry Bacon Jr. with Kerry; Matthew Cooper, Michael Duffy and Karen Tumulty/ Washington; Eric Roston/ Columbus; Wendy Cole/ Chicago; Mitch Frank and Nathan Thornburgh/ New York; Nancy Harbert/ Albuquerque; Marc Hequet/ Milwaukee; Sandeep Kaushik/ Seattle; Brad Liston/ Orlando; Wendy Malloy/ Tampa; Tim Padgett/Miami; Michael Peltier/ Tallahassee; Betsy Rubiner/ Des Moines; Sean Scully/ Philadelphia; and Stacy J. Willis/ Las Vegas

With reporting by John F. Dickerson with Bush; Perry Bacon Jr. with Kerry; Matthew Cooper; Michael Duffy; Karen Tumulty/ Washington; Eric Roston/ Columbus; Wendy Cole/ Chicago; Mitch Frank; Nathan Thornburgh/ New York; Nancy Harbert/ Albuquerque; ; Sandeep Kaushik/ Seattl