To those despondent individuals who claim that Bush has no "mandate" with only 51% of the vote, I ask you: What if Senator Kerry had won in Ohio by a few thousand votes, or even by as many as 136,000 as Bush did? That would have given Kerry an electoral college win but a popular vote deficit of a hefty 3 million or so. Bush would still have won a majority of the vote. Would that have been enough of a "mandate" for Kerry?
2 comments:
It sure was enough for Bush to claim a mandate in the 2000 election, which he did.
>> It sure was enough for Bush to claim a mandate in the 2000 election, which he did. <<
That's that darmed Electoral College for you. To extend my point a bit, back in 2000 neither candidate won a MAJORITY of the popular vote. Bush did without a doubt win a popular majority on 2-Nov besides winning a majority in the EC. At the time of Kerry's concession I almost wished that he would have won Ohio. Then we'd have seen the torturous spinning of the Democrats trying to justify their victory as a "mandate" without a majority of the popular vote -- which Bush would still have had. Lots of fun comparisons to 2000, lots of backing and filling.
I also wished that at midnight (Central time) on 2-Nov, when Fox News called Ohio for Bush, that he would not have won any other states. That would have thrown the election into the House of Representatives, giving us an historic opportunity to watch how they would then elect the President.
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