From: dpage@ra.csc.ti.com (Doug Page)
Subject: Re: Electoral Mandate?
Organization: Texas Instruments
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 23:46:18 GMT

In article <83098@ut-emx.uucp>, zeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Mark Gansle) writes:
|> 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.   |
|> +-------------------------+-------------------------+
|> 

But you forget the facts:

1) Clinton is a Democrat.

2) Clinton is President-elect.

By definition, at least  that of the Democrats, that is a mandate.  This is
true regardless of any other facts.

For example, here in Texas Ma Richards was strutting around Tuesday night
bragging about the "new" Democratic party.  She was bragging about how Clinton
got more votes than Bush in this state (which he did not).  She was bragging
about how the Democrats had gotten out the hispanic vote in the valley
(actually, the Republicans got out more newly registered hispanics and set
records for hispanic support both in number and percentage terms).  She was
bragging about how the Democrats had shown those "right-wing" Republicans
(actually, two of her first appointees were voted out of office; one was a
confessed felon that she had appointed to a state appeals court and the other
was the "wonderful" TR Commissioner that had lied not only about having a
college degree, but had claimed to be an honors student when she had actually
flunked out of college).  She was bragging about how the Democrats had taken
more control the US House (actually the Republicans picked up 18 seats) and
she was bragging on how the Democrats now had 60 seats in the US senate
(actually only 58 seats, a net gain of only 1 senate seat for the demos.)

Democrats ALWAYS view that they have a mandate if one of their own is elected
President.  They of course require that a Republican have a victory margin of
no less than 90% before it is a mandate.  In other words, Carter, Clinton, and
even JFK had mandates (in the eyes of the Democrats), but Nixon, Bush and
Regan did not.

dp

	"If character doesn't matter, what happened to Nixon, Agnew, and
	  Teddy?"

***  The opinions are mine and do not necessarily represent those of my  ***
***  employer.                                                           ***