The basic thrust of the media coverage of Bush’s victory goes something like this, “congratulations on winning, now it’s time to emulate the French.” Bush didn’t win this election by appealing to the center. He won it by bringing millions of conservative voters, especially Christian conservatives, out to the polls. Those four million Evangelicals who stayed home four years ago showed up on Tuesday and made their voices heard. Now is not the time to tack left: we’ve won and to the victors go the spoils.

For the past four years the Democrats and their allies have used every dirty trick in the book against this President. The election that we’ve just seen was filled with stories of violence and voter intimidation: almost universally on the Democratic side. If the numbers in Ohio had been just a tiny bit closer, I’ve no doubt in my mind that Senator Kerry would have tried to steal the election just as Al Gore did. After an election where Republican offices were stormed, Republicans were repeatedly assaulted, windows shot out: do you really expect us to feel kindly towards the left? After the Democrats spent four years hurling all manner of obscene abuse at a sitting President in the midst of a war, why should we be the ones who have to play nice?

Some have told me that I, among others, was a little too harsh yesterday: I don’t think I was. The Democrats waged an unprecedented campaign of personal destruction against this President. And they failed. If I was loud yesterday, just wait until the people who feel the way I do in Washington get to start acting. We’re not messing around here anymore. We, for the most part, have always obeyed the traditional unwritten rules of Washington politics. You didn’t. The Democrats broke every tradition and every convention of modern American politics in their unrelenting question to destroy George Walker Bush and, having shattered those traditional protections, cannot expect that we will observe and obey them now.

A basic rule of the new American democracy should now be clear: no matter how hard they try, no more than 60% of the people will ever be sufficiently roused to go to the polls. That seems to be the voter turnout ceiling in America. In all probability, it’ll have a hard time even getting that high again. So the secret of success for Republicans is not to have or try to win the support of a majority of the people: it’s to win the fanatical and undying loyalty of 20% of the overall population, to make sure that 20% shows up at the polls at every election, and to win forever. You can win with just the conservative base in America.

This changes things. I think that the President should lead off his second term with a push for the Federal Marriage Amendment. It probably won’t pass, yet. But it’ll get more votes. And we can trust that a great many Democrats, if torn between representing their actual constituents and representing the collection of special interests which makes up the Democrat Party will choose the latter. And, when that happens, we can use those votes to campaign against them with unprecedented fury and force.

In 2006 there will be Senate elections in places like Nebraska, North Dakota, West Virginia (where hopefully, “Sheets” Byrd won’t run again), Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, and Minnesota. All socially conservative states where seats are presently held by Democrats. If we can maintain and increase our momentum, maybe we can grab five extra seats which would, of course, give us filibuster-proof control of the Senate.

The real prize is, of course, the Supreme Court. This appears to have given us control there for a generation or more. Bush will get to appoint at least two and possibly as many as four or five new Supreme Court justices and, with the Republican majority in the Senate, he’ll probably be able to appoint whomever he wants: even if the so-called “nuclear option” has to be used.

This is a great day in history. We have done great things together.