So did the terrorist bombing effect Spain's election or not?

[anti_shrub]

I'm in a mini-debate with a guy who claims that the terrorist bombing changed the outcome of the election in Spain, while I seem to remember that the guy's numbers were in the toilet due to his support of Iraq.

I did ask him to back up his claim like a good little debater, but am I wrong here? I thought it was common knowledge that guy was going to lose for sucking at Bush's teat but the bombing seems to have altered history.

[alfredo]

1. It was just one of many strikes against him. He had lied to the people,

led them into a war they didn't want.

[fdr_hst_fan]

3. That's right-the

bombing was just ONE MORE nail in his political coffin!

[alfredo]

7. We need to get fully informed on this so we

can fight the Rove lie machine.

[mapster]

2. Because the government lied about it.

They tried to blame it all on the Basques.

[maggrwaggr]

5. right. The American "media" doesn't want to promote this truth

but that's what happened. They were pissed off because the government knew who did it and fucking LIED about it.

People don't like being lied to.

[bluestateguy]

4. reply

The Conservatives were only leading in the polls by 3 to 5 points. They tried to blame the bombing on the Basque separatists, which was a blatant lie. When this was discovered they slipped in the polls and the Socialists won by about 4 points. It is also important to note that Aznar ignored the will of 90% of the Spainish people by getting involved in the Iraq war. There are consequences for ignoring the people in a democracy.

[cprise]

6. Word of Aznar's coverup affected the election.

He tried to pin the attack on a politically-convenient target, leaving the country vulnerabe to further attack.

Intolerable! Good riddance...

[manic expression]

8. It had a lot less to do with it

than the constant disregard for the people's well-being. The bombing really had little to do with the outcome. The government's RESPONSE to the bombing is what really set the Spanish people against them. 90 percent of the public disagreed with the choice to join Bush's crusade, and so blaming the results of the election simply on the bombing is absolutely wrong.

[leftofthedial]

9. spanish neocon government was in the tank anyway

then in the aftermath of the bombing, they very obviously and clumsily lied and misled the country about the bombing, who did it, etc. and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

They lost because they lied to the country about terrorism (sound familiar?).

[T Roosevelt]

10. Here's a great article

The Warning in Spain's Election
NRC Handelsblad, March 17, 2004

Ivo H. Daalder, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies

Did terrorists succeed in toppling the government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, one of the Bush administration's staunchest allies in the Iraq War? A surprising number of commentators appear to believe just that. By voting for the Socialist opposition, which promised to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq by June 30, many appear to believe that a majority of Spaniards in last Sunday's elections acted as unwitting accomplices in the terrorists' cause.

It is true that the governing Popular Party led in the polls until days before the elections, and it would likely have been reelected but for the horrific train bombings in Madrid that occurred just 72 hours before the voting started. But that does not mean voters turned against the government out of fear of the terrorists. The reality is more complicated.

<snip>

But this analysis is flawed in at least two important respects. Nearly ninety percent of the Spanish population opposed Aznar's decision to support Bush's war against Iraq. They saw it as a dangerous, destabilizing, and unnecessary intervention that was likely to result in more ill than good. While most Spaniards may not have blamed the terrorist attacks on Aznar's support for Bush, the bombings enhanced the salience of the Iraq issue just days before the election. Indeed, turnout last Sunday rose significantly, especially among the young, to the apparent benefit of the Socialist Party.

Another flaw in this reasoning is in assuming that Spaniards, like Americans, see Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. They don't. For them, as for most Europeans, the war in Iraq and the war on terror are completely separate. In fact, the train bombings in Madrid (like the earlier attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Turkey) underscored that toppling Saddam Hussein had not ended the threat of terrorism. To the contrary, it may even have encouraged it—which is how many Spaniards interpreted last week's terrorist attacks.

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