From: zeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Mark Gansle)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Electoral Mandate?
Date: 5 Nov 92 20:06:25 GMT
Reply-To: zeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Mark Gansle)
Followup-To: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

In article <mrsmart.720887073@cs1.bradley.edu>, mrsmart@cs1.bradley.edu
(Robert Knautz) writes:
|>I heard (I think) Peter Jennings use the term "Electoral Mandate" in
|>describing Clinton's win.  Can somebody please tell me what the hell
|>that is supposed to mean?  A true mandate can only come from the
|>popular vote.  If they are going to call this a mandate, then Bush
|>certainly had one in 1988, and he at least got a popular majority.  If
|>the popular press think they are going to pass someone who received
|>only a plurality(sp?) of the votes as having a mandate, they are
|>sorely mistaken.  One exit poll I saw this morning said (I was only
|>half-awake, so could be wrong) that 56% of the voters said they would
|>be concerned or afraid if Clinton was elected president.  Mandate, I
|>think not!
|>--
|>     Rob Knautz    Accounting God    Bradley University, Peoria, Ill.
|>	mrsmart@cs1.bradley.edu     rknautz@heartland.bradley.edu
|>            -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
|>   If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!
                
I'm not happy that Clinton was elected, that I will admit.  But I read
the AP report Wednesday morning and was told that Clinton won in a
landslide.  While the results were an electoral landslide, one cannot
honestly say that Clinton has a mandate.  Let's examine the problems
facing Clinton vis a vis a mandate.

1) Clinton got less than 50% of the vote.  That means the majority of
the nation did *not* want Clinton to be president.

2) Clinton had a five point margin on George Bush.  I have never heard
of a landslide of less than 10 points, and even then I would question
the use of the word landslide.

3) Clinton got less of the popular vote in 1992 than Dukakis got in
1988.  How can someone who got less support than a political nobody have
a mandate?

4) A very large portion of Clinton's support was specifically anti-Bush
and not at all pro-Clinton.  While I will admit that many people voted
for Clinton because of his pledges to keep abortion legal in all
circumstances or raise taxes on the "rich", anyone listening to Rush's
show will have to grant that many voting for the man did so because they
hated Bush.

5) Political revisionism--I believe that history will vindicate Rush's
claims that the Democrats had to lie or, at the least, exaggerate to
scare enough people into voting for him.  The economy is *not* the worst
we've seen in fifty years, but that's why a number of voters cast their
vote for Clinton.

6) Unbelievable promises--Clinton promised all sort of things within his
first one hundred days, like nationalized health care.  This is
completely impossible, given the nature of legislation in the United States.

Now, if Clinton *does* end up being the moderate he claims to be, then I
will grant him his successes, just as I admit that Bush was a
better-than-average President.  He was no great President, and I don't
expect Clinton to be on either.  But we shall see.

+-------------------------+-------------------------+
|Cloud-gathering Zeus     |Think globally.          |
|                         |Act locally.             |
|zeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu  |Eat my shorts totally.   |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+