Americans can also learn a lesson from history.
Close elections are healthy and have been good for the country.
Landslides, which encourage hubris and folly, have not. Mandates are what leaders make of them. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln won 40 percent of the vote in a four-way race. He faced what he called in his inaugural address ''great and peculiar difficulty'' and he did not mean pills for old folks. Lincoln took action and saved the Union.