ABSTRACT

In April 2003, George W. Bush traveled to Dearborn, Michigan, to address the community's large Arab American population. The president hoped the trip would mollify Arab American voters, part of his electoral coalition in 2000 and a voting bloc that was now wavering in response to the harsh words uttered against Islam by neoconservatives and evangelical Christian leaders close to the president. 1 Bush reassured the Dearborn audience that he did not share the hard-line views toward Islam expressed by his close allies, ministers such as the Reverends Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell, and by Daniel Pipes, the president's appointee to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Nonetheless, the backlash against the president led to the emergence of a new organization, “Arab American Republicans against Bush,” with the goal of diverting votes and money away from the incumbent. 2