The Myth of the "Republican Mandate"

[liberalpragmatist]

http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/socialstudies/111204.htm

SOCIAL STUDIES
In 2004, The Country Didn't Turn Right -- But The GOP Did
By Jonathan Rauch, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Nov. 12, 2004

The election of 2004 was one of the greatest of our era, but the post-election of 2004 was as bad as they come. Rarely have election returns been so widely but wrongly -- in fact, dangerously -- misconstrued.

<snip>

Begin with that stunning triumph. "Stunning" implies surprising. Any observers who were stunned this year lived in a cave (or on Manhattan's Upper West Side). All year long, month after month, opinion polls averaged to give Bush a lead in the low-to-mid-single digits, depending on when the poll was taken and who took it. Only toward the end, after the debates, did the gap narrow to that now proverbial "statistical dead heat." Even then, the statistically insignificant margin generally favored Bush. Another indicator was the University of Iowa's electronic election market, which lets traders bet on election outcomes; it consistently showed Bush winning with a percentage in the low 50s. Rarely has an election been so unsurprising.

A triumph? Only by the anomalous standards of 2000. By any other standard, 2004 was a squeaker, given that an incumbent was on the ticket. The last conservative, polarizing Republican incumbent who slashed taxes and campaigned on resolve against a foreign enemy won 49 states and received 59 percent of the popular vote. That, of course, was Ronald Reagan, who did not need to scrounge for votes to keep his job.

Most incumbent presidents win in a walk. The prestige and visibility of the White House gives them a powerful natural advantage. Bush enjoyed the further advantage of running against a Northeastern liberal who had trouble defining himself and didn't find the battlefield until September. By historical standards, Bush in 2004 was notably weak.

The boast that Bush is the first candidate to win a popular majority since 1988 is just pathetic. Bush is the first presidential candidate since 1988 to run without effective third-party competition, and he still barely won. No one doubts that Bill Clinton would have won a majority in his re-election bid in 1996 if not for the candidacy of Ross Perot.

[Lisabtrucking]

1. found this after snooping on the republican web sight

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/


I just found this on the bush web sight. Ineresting