The New York Times interactive maps are a lot of fun to play with. http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html
Lol....53% of US voters voted for Obama. Sounds about like what Bush received the last two elections. Were those mandates?
Actually, I agree with you on that. The American public is pretty well divided - well, the one's that vote anyway. They are also incredibly fickle, which is reflected in voting patterns the last 20 years. Having said that, this is the first election I recall in a while where many members of the losing party have sounded hopeful and been relatively gracious. Lord knows the GOP after Clinton was elected and the Dems after GW were neither.
If we apply the Bush standard of a "mandate" to Obama's election, this is damn near a call for Obama to be King of America.
I called this in the Election 2008 thread. NC and FL will go blue and he will sweep CO, NM, NV. Good to see this time Americans picked a president based on intelligence and decision making instead of "who is most like me" or "who would I like to have a beer with?".
2000 George W. Bush 47.9%(-1.5%) 271 EVs (+5) Al Gore 48.4% 266 EVs 2004 George W. Bush 50.7% (+2%) 286 EVs (+5) John Kerry 48.3% 251 EVs 2008 Barack Obama 52% (+6%) 364 EVs (+202 ) John Mccain 46% 162 EVs as usual, NO CRED
except your absolutely wrong. bush got 50.7% obama is arpound 52.5%. the difference is we won by 6% and bush won by 2%. we won by an electoral landslide. we won with 3 million people giving money to our guy. oh and we have the senate and the house with overwhelming majority which is in large part due to obama's coat tails.
We don't need the word "mandate" at any rate. You can say he was clearly the preferred candidate with the preferred platform. But just take the total number of votes McCain received and compare that to the vote total of, say, Clinton. There are a ton of people who voted for McCain. I hope the dems do not get a 60 spot in the Senate, as we need bipartisan work more than ever. If there's any mandate from the people, they want both parties to stop the petty bickering and to get something done. I hope he puts together a "team of rivals," Lincoln style, in his cabinet.
li'l t, Haven't you been one of those blathering about how the "Democrat" congress has lower approval ratings than Bush. Can you explain how Democrats just signficantly expanded their majorities in the House and Senate, if everyone hates them so much?
Remember Bush said he had earned "political capital" after beating Kerry and he intended to "spend it". What a clueless joker. For those who remember, even Ronald Reagan only won 59% of the vote in 1984 when trampling Mondale. It depends how you define mandate. In today's environment, I think a 7% margin is very large. The last 2 elections were razor-close. Obama must govern from the center to be successful. I believe he knows that. If he and the Dems allow 1994 to happen all over again, they deserve it. But I doubt very much the GOP will be as focused and unified as they were in 94. It's going to take them a while get their legs. In 2 years, they may not be able to offer themselves as a coherent alternative.
