Did Bin Laden Help Bush Win Re-Election?
Did terrorists shape the U.S. election as many feared?

According to projections by most major news organizations, George W. Bush has enough votes in the electoral college to win re-election to a second term. Many of these organizations also conducted exit surveys of voters leaving the polling place; and while “moral values” has been widely reported as the unforseen issue most important to voters, an equal number indicated terrorism as their primary concern. Among this group, 86%¹ said they voted for George W. Bush. The Bush campaign had tried to make terrorism the central issue of the 2004 election to deflect attention from the President's poor record in office. Their attempts were largely unsuccessful as Senator Kerry's polling numbers started closing in on the President's in the final days of the campaign.² On October 29th, Osama bin Laden rushed to George W. Bush's aid by releasing a video statement to the media. Four days later, Bush reaped the benefits of Bin Laden's “October Surprise” at the polls.

Having to defend his dismal record in office, Bush faced a tough re-election fight. Four years ago, America was experiencing unprecedented prosperity in the waning years of the Clinton administration. But under the Bush administration, America experienced a continual decline in its economy, security and quality of life. Throughout the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush faced an uphill battle in explaining his administration's record of job losses, environmental neglect, the mounting death toll from its war of choice in Iraq and the growing worldwide animosity toward America. Rather than face these challenges head on, the incumbent took a different tack -- the Bush campaign chose to politicize the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. It seemed unusual for a sitting administration to tout the worst terrorist attacks ever visited upon the United States as an election centerpiece, especially given the Bush administration's failings in national security policy that allowed the attacks to occur, but it turned out to be a stroke of genius.

Throughout the campaign, Bush and his surrogates never missed an opportunity to mention September 11th. The Republican National Convention was even held in New York City, one week before the anniversary of the terrorist attacks -- it couldn't have been any closer to ground zero. Many of the convention speakers made sure to talk up the threat of terrorism while ignoring any mention of the Bush administration's failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden³. While some people thought this would backfire on the Bush administration and expose their record of failure in preventing terrorism, the GOP's slick presentation won over undecided voters and gave Bush a seven point lead following the convention⁴. Unfortunately for the Bush campaign, the voters quickly remembered the dismal state of the country once the polished convention footage faded from memory and the President quickly found himself in a dead heat with the Senator⁵.

But the precedent had been established: fear of terrorism would help the President gain political ground -- if only for a few days. It turned out that a few days would be all Bush needed. Al Qaeda has purportedly favored the Bush administration⁶ because the administration's reckless foreign policies help the terrorist network recruit the next generation of extremists. While one alleged sect of the Al Qaeda network issued a full endorsement of Bush's re-election⁷, Osama bin Laden was quite a bit more cunning. Bin Laden recognized that by invoking terrorism at every opportunity during the Republican National Convention, the speakers had driven a small margin of voters to the President. With the race being as close as it was, a small margin of voters would be all Bush would need to win. So on 29 October 2004, Bin Laden sent a taped message to the al Jazeera television network saying, “Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked.”⁸ Some have said that Bin Laden was not seeking a truce, but rather trying to give the impression that his network was weakening so voters would mistakenly believe that the Bush administration was successful in fighting terrorism. Even if voters didn't fall for Bin Laden's ploy, his mere appearance in the media would still drive voters to Bush for a few days, as the RNC had demonstrated. Four days later, Bush eeked out a small margin of victory.

86% of voters citing terrorism as their most important issue were not turned off by the crassness of the Bush campaign politicizing the murder of over 3,000 innocent civilians -- they ate it up. Suffering from a woefully short memory, these voters forgot that Bush's national security team failed to prevent the attacks; they forgot that Bush initially opposed any congressional or independent effort to discover what really happened on September 11th and how it led to the attacks; they forgot that Bush initially opposed implementing the full intelligence reform recommended by the 9/11 investigation panel. Instead, they listened to Osama Bin Laden's phony calls for truce and thought that despite all evidence to the contrary, Bush might be winning the war on terrorism. By voting their fears instead of their hopes, these people helped terrorists like Osama Bin Laden insure that Bush would be around for another four years to inspire more Islamist extremists to attempt further atrocities on America. Bin Laden served as an invisible hand to guide a victory to George W. Bush, leaving many Americans to wonder if we will ever be able to return to the safety and security of the Clinton years.