Posted on 11/07/2012 9:22:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In the aftermath of any victory, presidential candidates proclaim a new mandate to move forward on the values of their campaign. Barack Obama will probably be no different, but National Journal's Ron Fournier warns that claiming a mandate after this election would be politically dangerous --- and a fantasy:
Barack Obama won a second term but no mandate. Thanks in part to his own small-bore and brutish campaign, victory guarantees the president nothing more than the headache of building consensus in a gridlocked capital on behalf of a polarized public.
If the president begins his second term under any delusion that voters rubber-stamped his agenda Tuesday night, he is doomed to fail.
Mandates are rarely won on Election Night. They are earned after Inauguration Day by leaders who spend their political capital wisely, taking advantage of events without overreaching. Obama is capable – as evidenced by his first-term success with health care reform. But mandate-building requires humility, a trait not easily associated with him.
“The mandate is a myth,” said John Altman, associate professor of political science at York College of Pennsylvania. “But even if there was such a thing as a mandate, this clearly isn’t an election that would produce one.”
He pointed to Obama’s small margin of victory and the fact that U.S. voters are divided deeply by race, gender, spirituality and party affiliation. You can’t claim to be carrying out the will of the people when the populous has little shared will.
Fournier has this most correct in his initial thought. In order to claim a mandate, one has to have run on clear, positive values. The only real takeaway from the Obama campaign was that Mitt Romney was too extreme or too willing to change to be President, which doesn’t leave much of a positive basis for Obama to claim a mandate. The first appearance of even the skeleton of a second-term agenda came 567 days into the campaign, and that consisted of vague pledges to stick to the status quo.
Furthermore, this was the unique re-election where an incumbent President did slightly worse than his first election. Obama lost two states he won, and the popular-vote margin will be narrower on a percentage basis than in 2008. That doesn’t equate to a ringing vote of confidence in Obama’s agenda; in fact, it sounds a bit like a warning that a second term had better produce more than the first.
Perhaps Obama understood that last night. His victory speech didn’t hail a mandate, but instead focused rhetorically on the need for better solutions from everyone across the board. How long will that last? We’ll see, but shortly after his last victory, Obama didn’t hesitate to tell Republicans to get used to the fact that “I won.” Perhaps he learned a lesson from that, but it wouldn’t have come from winning his next election.
The Chicago Tribune notes that Obama may not have learned the lesson at all:
“You made your voice heard,” Obama said in his acceptance speech, signaling that he believes the bulk of the country is behind his policies. It’s a sticking point for House Republicans, sure to balk at that.
The same voters who gave Obama four more years in office also elected a divided Congress, sticking with the dynamic that has made it so hard for the president to advance his agenda. Democrats retained control of the Senate; Republicans kept their House majority.
Here’s Obama’s full speech from last night:
Exactly what I am doing. Turning 62 in December, and have already applied for my SS. Could easily have kept working, but have no desire to support communism. Turned off the satelite TV service a few weeks ago, and my only source of news or communication is the internet.
LOL..! I needed that today!
I don’t think it matters. Obama can now do most anything he wants, and he will.
We didn’t just lose an election, we lost relevance, we lost our country.
I understand why the idea exists. It just doesn’t seem to me that 55 out of 100 really indicates a significantly greater degree of public support than 51 out of 100.
But I also realize most people don’t agree with me.
And the slavering, drooling masses glued to their telescreens will parrot it in mindless unison. They will proclaim it double-plus good.
And all who say otherwise are Racis'.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaha!!!
You foolish silly-person!
Whatever makes you think that the "Constitution" (that outmoded document written by dead white slave-owners) has any meaning in this modern utopia?
FORWARD!!!!
It presumes a world where 40% of the public would support anything with a -D after its name and 40% would support anything with an -R.
Under that view, it's not 51/100 vs. 55/100, but 11/20 (55%) vs 15/20 (75%), which is a much more meaningful result.
He has all the “mandate” he wants. He can now rule by fiat. He started openly using that power already and the congress did not object.Some Republicans objected to the purposes of the fiats but they did not object to the president’s right to use them. Ergo, thus and therefore the Constitution and Congress are no longer important parts of our system of government. They now exist only for formality and the illusion that the USA is still a republic. It is not. Analagous to the Romans, we have made the transition from Republic to Empire, or rather, to despotism that may turn out to be empire. This would be true, even if Romney had won. Once the presidency has used fiat successfully it becomes a part of the Presidency. The election passing without Fiat even being an issue of the election ensures that result.
He turned the election into a referendum on Big Bird. The only thing he has a mandate for is to save Big Bird.
“He turned the election into a referendum on Big Bird. The only thing he has a mandate for is to save Big Bird.”
That’s the only part of the election I enjoyed. My dog had a Big Bird toy. So I made a noose and hung it from my rear view mirror. That was fun.
The Reagan revolution died under Bush. Bush never made the case for it- he just played Rove-style base politics.
Reagan knew in the 60s and 70s that the electorate had become collectivist. He knew that he had to persuade people- to reveal through humor and logic that free market economics were superior to Nixon-style rigorismo.
If by mandate you mean he will cator to a small core of the population at the expense of everyone else then yes.
Of course he did. The GOP lost the White House and 2 senate seats. It’s all go for broke now.
I dunno, did he come out of the closet?
Obama does have a mandate. The mandate is to divide the nation , bring about its fiscal destruction and its military failure.That mandate does not come from Americans, it comes from elsewhere.
America will rue the day it re-elected Obama. Now the real hurt begins.
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