Why "mandate" means nothing any longer (thanks to ...)

And now comes the University of Virginia's Center for Politics:

Our final Electoral College projection has the president winning the key swing states of Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin and topping Mitt Romney, with 290 electoral votes.

This projection is quite conservative, although it's 9 points higher (because of Colorado's inclusion) than my instincts suggested just a few days ago.

Still, I have resisted making a numerical prediction for three unshakable reasons: Obama will win the Electoral College vote and that's all that matters; the GOP, no matter how enormously the president might win it, will deny that Obama has a mandate; and Democrats, no matter how narrowly the president might win it, will insist that Obama does have a mandate.

And the latter will be historically justified.

Along with all his other destruction, George W. Bush forever destroyed the traditional concept of "mandate," with his 51-percent claim of one in 2004. The word itself became a plaything, just as he treated deadly military interventions, the public treasury, and middle-class fears. It was all just a game to Mr. Bush. He--the "conservative"--could dispense with inconvenient traditions and meaningful language at will.

I doubt we ever overcome the immense damage that Bush did to this country in so many ways. One word is among the least of it, but language is the genesis of all.

Comments

[Turgidson]

Bush also sullied the concept of a "mandate" by almost immediately trying to do something he had not explicitly made part of his 2004 reelection message - privatize Social Security. Which just about nobody wanted, outside of Kochsuckers like Paul Ryan and Wall Street narcissists. That was one of the early events that killed his chances at a useful 2nd term. Iraq dragging on, and then Katrina, were the mortal blows soon after.

Which is why I found it infuriating that the right wing immediately started hollering that "this isn't the hope and change the voters wanted" as soon as Obama tried to do...well, anything.

True, he hadn't campaigned on a massive stimulus bill. Because he didn't realize one was needed until the eve of the election. But most everything else he did was stuff he campaigned on, in milder versions no less. He took heat from both flanks for this. "Socialist!" they screamed from the right. "Corporate sellout!" from the left.

Ah, well.

[AnneJ]

I believe after the election of 2004, W. Bush claimed he had political capital and he intended to spend it. Then in 2005, he more than spent it trying to privatize social security and it was all downhill from there.