Bush's Triumph: 2004 Election: In Victory's Glow

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...

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