Comments on: Is 63 Million Votes a Mandate?

By: EKB

EKB — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:08:35 +0000

A landslide usually means nearly all the land is sliding, doesn’t it? Not 54%-56% of the land. If the Packers win 21-14 against the Vikings, nobody calls it a “blowout.” Let’s save terms like “mandate” and “landslide” for times when it really warrants it.

By: ClassicConservative

ClassicConservative — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:34:33 +0000

20 House seats, 6 Senate seats, and +7-8 million on his opponent... thats kind of a distinguished win.

I'm not going to lie, if McCain and the GOP achieved that I'd be calling it a mandate.

By: Republican_Michigander

Republican_Michigander — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:33:51 +0000

At least since 1930′s. Those that claim mandates always tend to overreach and fail. Reagan was close but lost the senate in 86. Bush lost in 06 after 04. Clinton lost in 94.

By: mailloux

mailloux — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:41:30 +0000

2006personoftheyear & HanPritcher:

I see both of your points and appreciate you folks sharing your thoughts. It's always helpful to get different angles, especially with data.

Yes, Obama's vote margin was healthy, but I still think it falls far short of the expectations surrounding his campaign. Several outlier polls even put him ahead by up to 15 points. And, in no small part due to his messianic image, some thought this would be the mother of all blow-outs, and thus, an indication that he's got a resounding mandate for a sea change far to the left.

In my post, I also wanted to stress the 1932 election of FDR. He too was not the incumbent and the US was experiencing an economic crisis at the time. FDR's margin of 17.7% in the popular vote was far more impressive than Obama's 6%. The media has hammered away at the idea that the 2008 crisis is just about as bad as the Great Depression (as an aside, my local paper in Wisconsin featured a picture from the Great Depression of two children eating salted lard sandwiches issued by the government . . . this was the weekend before the election and in context to the 2008 financial crisis. Thank God, we are not reduced to eating salted lard sandwiches and hopefully we won't be. As I write this, you can still buy, at a very reasonble price, a Cheese Mountain Pizza at QuickTrip Gas Stations and wash it down with a mind boggling choice of beverages.). This was the pre-election message the media pushed because it was harmful to the incumbent party. Obama was to be the cool headed savior, already compared to the likes of Lincoln and Kennedy, that was supposed to sweep in and save us with a new New Deal. In my humble opinion, the vote margin of 6% doesn't indicate that the public looked at it in quite the same way.

Again, thank you for your excellent comments and for reading my post.

Take Care, mailloux

By: Han_Pritcher

Han_Pritcher — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:08:08 +0000

Obama – 65,132,302 53%
McCain – 57,185,339 46%

Is it historic? No. It’s by no means the largest margin of victory. But it was absolutely not small. He’s ahead by just about eight million votes, and again, they’re still counting.

By: 2006_personoftheyear

2006_personoftheyear — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:46:00 +0000

I think the key thing here is to think about challengers vs incumbents. There have been a lot of bigger landslides, but the biggest ones are for incumbents. In terms of non-incumbents, in postwar times, this was bigger than 2000,1992,1976,1968, and 1960 and smaller than 1980,1988 (though HW was veep), and 1952. It is the biggest vote for a non-incumbent in 20 years, and if you count the veep as a pseudo-incumbent, the largest since 1980 with Reagan.

Also, it seems bigger given recent history. People said "mandate" after Bush in 2004, so they'll say it after Obama now.