The State of American Federalism, 2004:
‘Is Federalism still a core value’?
Dale Krane
and
Heidi Koenig
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Northern Illinois University
Campaigns for the office of President of the United States begin immediately after a president is
elected. The contest becomes a non-stop affair during the final year leading to the election, and
2004 was no different. In many ways the competition between the two candidates played out
along familiar lines, albeit more expensively and more acrimoniously than previous races. The
incumbent, George W. Bush, won as most incumbents do, but with the smallest margin of any
reelected president in more than a century. Because the nation was at war in Afghanistan and
Iraq, and also engaged in a global war on terrorism, these conflicts influenced the choice of the
Democratic party’s candidate and shaped much of the ensuing debate between the president and
his challenger. Domestic issues – the economy, health care, same sex marriage, taxes – took
second place to the question of which candidate could best protect the nation from foreign
terrorists.
Unlike recent presidential elections, neither political party devoted any attention to
questions of federalism. Whereas in the past the Republican party platform would include a
strong commitment to restrain and reduce federal power over state and local governments, the
2004 platform offered no lengthy brief in defense of states’ rights, but only made a ‘tip of the
hat’ mention of traditional local control over public education as part of a larger discussion
lauding the No Child Left Behind Act. Similarly, where the Democrats in the past spoke of the
importance of federal–state cooperation rather than competition, their 2004 platform made only
one specific policy recommendation with a federalism dimension: that the decision to ban (or
not) same sex marriage be left to state governments.
After his reelection, President Bush’s first two speeches also ignored federalism. His
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