Mandate: an authorization to act given to a representative
Three hundred and thirty two electoral votes, 61 million popular votes, 50.5% of the electorate. What in the name of all that is good and holy – trickle down economics and plastic jesus – just happened?
Not a mandate!
It took Republicans all of about 10 minutes after their crushing electoral defeat on Tuesday night to declare the result was not a mandate for the incumbent. Pay no attention to that election behind the curtain!
The results apparently only reinforce the tired, if perpetually reinvented, narrative that we are an evenly divided country. Implicit in this argument is, we're not going to get a damn thing done. Just the way conservatives like it - no hope, no change, no nothing.
Gracious losers, these Teabag Patriots.
The 'no mandate' crowd is all over the airwaves right now. The media love nothing if not to prove their independence by poo-pooing Democratic advances. So, on with the Frankenstorm of conservative pundits and pols to deny the undeniable!
Denial is their bag. Evolution, climate change, the Big Bang, rape, a two party system. Hey, you name it - they'll deny it. Reality be damned!
We highlight just a few of the denialists here.
Charles Krauthammer, Dr. Strangelove to confederates, wasted no time on Tuesday night minimizing the effect of the drubbing, painting as rosy a picture for the Republican Party as his dour personage could muster. Of the president's victory he opined:
"In order to win reelection, he went small, stayed small putting together his constituencies here and there. And he put it together enough that he won. If he manages to win the popular vote, it will be very small, if there’s any. And even in the electoral, I think it will be a very small majority. Particularly if Virginia and Florida will go to Romney. So this is not a mandate in the number, or in the way that he campaigned. He did not campaign on any ideas. Anything large. Anything important."
Dr. Charlie got the popular vote wrong and screwed up on Florida and Virginia, too. Poor man - premature prognostication and all. But, we digress.
The increasingly vile Mary Matalin had an agitated exchange with Van Jones on CNN this Wednesday. A composed Jones argued for bipartisanship against a nearly unhinged Matalin who, between venomous swipes at the president, screetches, “he has no mandate!”
The lovely Mary: VIDEO
Charming ectotherm, Mitch McConnell, had a classless, if cold, congratulations for the president. In part, his statement read:
"The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the President’s first term, they have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together with a Congress that restored balance to Washington after two years of one-party control."
Translation:
"I'm a recalcitrant asshole who doesn't respect the Office or the People. No mandate for you!"
Thanks for the moment of unity, Mitch. Back to the obstucterrarium.
Problem for Mitch and the crew is that we have some history with this mandate stuff. Like 2004 when a Republican incumbent was, reportedly, reelected. What do you think this crowd had to say back then?
Dr. Strangelove on Dubya's 2004 victory:
“Later than most two-term presidents, George Bush got his mandate. To be sure, he did get one on Sept. 11 from Osama bin Laden but, until Tuesday, not from the American people. The bin Laden mandate gave him freedom of action on a very large scale (two wars, the Patriot Act). With it he produced a remarkable success in Afghanistan and a still-unresolved war in Iraq. Above all was the one inescapable if unspoken fact, greatly overlooked in explaining this election: Three years had passed since Sept. 11 and, against all expectations, we had not been attacked again.
This election was a referendum on Bush's handling of his first, accidental mandate.”
Mary Matalin on Dubya's 2004 victory:
"So I think he ran on an agenda, he increased his margins everywhere with every--almost every demographic in particular for the future, Hispanics and the black vote, women, seniors, across the board. So that is pretty much grounds for a mandate, and we're predicting some progress on that agenda."
Old Mitch McConnell was the Republican Party Whip in 2004 so he hid from public view and did all of his devious work behind the scenes. Quietly. Can anybody guess if he thought Dubya had a mandate? Old slow and steady sure as heck did.
Surprise! The troop of hypocritical Howler Monkeys flip and flopped from their 2004 positions. Why not? Worked great for Mitt.
Assuming Florida decides to finish its vote count, Obama beats Bush by forty-six electoral college votes in his reelection bid. But Bush gets the mandate?
Doesn't work that way boys. Reality matters.
There was an election on Tuesday and a decisive result. In it, the voters conferred to their given representative an authorization to act.
The president has a mandate to govern for the next four years. He must act on that mandate - forcefully. To heal a nation still hemorrhaging from too many years of Republican rule and obstruction. The nation demands it.
After careful consideration, Mitt Romney's request for authorization was rejected. Incomplete and unsatisfactory application!
A loyal opposition would work now for the good of their country. A loyal opposition would accept the mandate of the people.
What ever happened to a loyal opposition? The Teabaggers must have shoved it overboard along with that inconvenient passenger known as reality.
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humanist cafe