E.J. Dionne huffs, “A 51-48 percent victory is not a mandate.” And Joshua Micah Marshall—responding to the President’s claim that his reelection was a “broad, nationwide victory”—writes: “He must be kidding. Our system is majority rule. And 51% is a win. But he's claiming a mandate. ‘A broad, nationwide victory’? It would almost be comical if it weren't for the seriousness of what it portends. This election cut the nation in two. A single percentage point over 50% is not broad.”
In the last 60 years, only one Democrat—Lyndon Johnson—received a percentage of the popular vote as high as President Bush’s (see below). And as we know, no one has ever received so many votes. Are these guys saying that only Clinton and Kennedy and Truman didn’t have broad victories and couldn’t claim a “mandate”?
- Clinton in 1996—49.2
- Clinton in 1992—43.0
- Carter in 1976—50.1
- Kennedy in 1960—49.7
- Johnson in 1964—61.1
- Truman in 1948—49.6
Dionne also complains: “Even Democrats have talked about their party's being confined to an ‘enclave.’ Enclave? Blue America includes the entire Northeast, all of the West Coast but for Alaska and much of the upper Midwest.”
Well, let’s go to the map. Yep, it’s an enclave.
Update 2: A friend writes:
I think this is true and a helpful way of putting things.
Note that my original post wasn't making the case for a "mandate"--an obviously ambiguous term. I'm just wondering if all those "there's no mandate!" folks were saying the same thing about Clinton.
Update 3: A reader alerts Instapundit that the popular-vote gap has widened, 52-47, for a difference of over 4.5 million votes.
