North Carolina makes nine red states flipped to blue. And Texas is on track for 2012. With the axiom that the popular vote is the best metric for gauging the existence of a mandate, I look at the numbers and conclude that Obama has a clearer mandate from the people than any President in recent history.
However something that the far left will need to understand is that the mandate is for Obama, not them. The liberal leftist netroots are self-described as “progressive” – which is unabashedly NOT “center-left”. The netroots played a major role in Obama’s victory but in another sense, they were also irrelevant, since Obama created his online base virtually from scratch (the netroots are, however, much more directly responsible for the Congressional downballot successes). So, expectations of a “progressive” agenda are probably going to be met with disappointment, as Obama’s instincts are soldily centrist. The netroots know it too – look at this by Bowers at OpenLeft where he details all the ways in which Rahm fails to live up to progressive orthodoxy.Clinton, in contrast, was a center-right politician, so Obama will definitely pursue a more liberal agenda, on average, but his general approach will still be coalition-minded and incremental rather than bold and ideological. We have a technocrat in the White House come January.
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With the axiom that the popular vote is the best metric for gauging the existence of a mandate, I look at the numbers and conclude that Obama has a clearer mandate from the people than any President in recent history.
I’m not sure what you mean by recent history, but I’ll go back to the first election after I was born – 1972. The following presidents had either a greater popular vote margin or greater percentage of the popular vote than Obama or a greater number of electoral votes (from infoplease):
1972 – Nixon by 18 million -Â Â Â Â Â Â 60.1% – 520 EV
1980 – Reagan by 7.4 million – Â 51% -Â Â Â 489 EV
1984 – Reagan by 16.9 million – 59.2% – 525 EV
1988 – Bush by 7.1 million – Â Â Â Â 53.9% – 426 EV
1992 – Clinton by 5.8 million -Â Â Â 43.3% – 370 EV
1996 – Clinton by 8.2 million -Â Â Â 50.1% – 379 EV
2008 – Obama by 7.2 million -Â Â Â 53% -Â 364 EV
So four presidents in the last 36 years have won by a greater number of votes and three have won with a greater percentage of the popular vote and six have received more electoral votes (unless Obama takes Missouri, then five will have had more). That doesn’t look like "a clearer mandate from the people than any President in recent history" to me.
He may very well have a mandate, but I don’t think it’s any clearer than some other recent presidents.
TexasAg03’s last blog post..Teacher Browbeats Little Girl for Daring to Support John McCain
Texas:
But you don’t understand… This is a BIGGER mandate because it is OBAMA’s mandate.
Why do you think facts, statistics or rationality matter? They didn’t during the election, why should they matter now?
It is interesting that Aziz believes Obama’s approach will be coalition-minded and incremental when Obama’s entire campaign and message has been that he will be bold and ideological.
I guess Aziz is admitting that Obama didn’t campaign truthfully.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Ruminations on an Obama administration?
greater popular vote margin or greater percentage of the popular vote
these are differential measures, which I only invoked to compare to Bush’s claim in 2004 of having a mandate. In comparison to Bush’s claim then the logic applies even more so for Obama.
All the other races you quote, the relevant metric is simply popular vote total, not percentage or margin.
A more robust analysis on my part would have corrected the turnout numbers for population growth, but the bottom line is that overall the Dems have consistently attracted more and more absolute numbers of people to the polls to vote for them. And Obama outperformed everyone, ever. In raw numbers of actual individual voters who were persuaded to vote for the candidate, Obama has the clearest mandate of any previous presidential candidate.
If I get time Ill do the population growth correction. However the important numbers are total (corrected) number of voters and the adjusted percentage of total voters for each candidate, not the margin.
Aziz,
I think absolute numbers may be misleading here. Â Shouldn’t you control for population growth? In that sense aren’t percentages the relevant metric?
I think TexasAg is both right and wrong. Â Perhaps Obama doesn’t have a mandate clearer than other presidents in the past (most notably Nixon’s 1972 win, and Bush Sr’s. 1988 win). Â But I think EVERY elected president essentially comes into office with a mandate. Â Clinton in 92 and Bush Jr. in 02 are probably the only exceptions since they didn’t win a majority of the popular vote.
The mere fact that >50% of the population voted for you means that they’re saying: "let’s give this guy and his ideas a try." Â In today’s political climate (maybe in ANY political climate), you’re never going to get a clearer mandate than that.
Oh give me a break.
Most people I know didn’t vote FOR Obama they voted AGAINST GWB and his party.
When I asked most people why they liked Obama, the most frequent response was that he was not a republican.
Donald Duck would have won this election as long as he had a D after his name and Mickey Mouse would have lost had he had an R.
You are really getting more and more ludicrous every day aziz.
Zach, i did mention population growth in my comment – and absolute percentage is certainly fine, but not percentage margin.
these are differential measures, which I only invoked to compare to Bush’s claim in 2004 of having a mandate. In comparison to Bush’s claim then the logic applies even more so for Obama.
Every winner claims they have a "mandate", which is why the term is so worthless. In a junior high school popularity contest, I wouldn’t claim to be the Most! Popular! Boy! Ever! if only 52 out of 100 voted for me; I’d take my slightly higher than average popularity and be happy with it.
Obama’s "mandate" is to not be George W. Bush.
Bryan Lovely’s last blog post..Musings on the Election
maggie,
okay, so that’s the people you know. how about the rest of the country?
Mandate to do what?, I repeatedly ask………….:)
HB
Aziz,
The guy isn’t even in office yet. Let him get in there, get his feet wet and run the country. If he does a great job, all the states will turn blue in 2012. If he does a crappy job, some of those states that turned blue this time will turn back to red. I think the only states that will stay blue are the West Coast states and the North East states. The rest will flip like Christmas lights depending on the performance of the President.
Jerry
jerry thats missing the point. Waiting for Obama to finish out a term and the grade him using the 2012 elections is totally backwards. The reason mandates matter is what Obama does in the next 4 years, not whether he gets reelected or not. I dont give a lfying fig if Obama gets reelected in 2012 if he doesnt do anything of consequence in the interval. I want him to spend that political capital NOW.
these are differential measures, which I only invoked to compare to Bush’s claim in 2004 of having a mandate. In comparison to Bush’s claim then the logic applies even more so for Obama.
Â
So, the logic being that Bush is the arbiter of what is and what is not a mandate? I thought Aziz and others didn’t trust him and mocked his claim of a mandate four years ago. Ah, but now Obama has a mandate because Bush had a mandate with a slightly smaller margin of victory!
Aziz likes to think of himself as a analytical/technical person. And as you can see from his past performance in analysis, he has some small ability to "crunch the number", but when it comes to a real, professional analysis he fails.
Aziz is becoming ridiculous
…Obama’s instincts are soldily[sic] centrist.
Whatever Aziz is smoking, I want some!
JLBussey’s last blog post..A Curious Young Buck
Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama has a mandate; but it isn’t the complete mandate that an overwheliming margin of victory would give.
maggie is right, many people signed on to Obama because they hated Bush and the GOP; they have given their approval implicitly to Obama. However, it doesn’t imply that they know, understand and approve of every last detail of his agenda so if he tries to "spend his political capital" by forcing through his entire agenda in ‘09 (something, even with said mandate, Bush never even came close to trying) he will lose those voters, his margin of victory, and (in’10) the Congress.
Clinton was centrist? Gee, I didn’t know that universal health care was a centrist position; oh wait, it isn’t.
Mandate to do what?, I repeatedly patiently ask……..
HB
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