Remember the “mandate”?
2004, Bush wins 284 electoral votes, 51% percent of the popular vote…the narrowist win for an incumbent since 1916, and it was called a mandate.
Wonder how much “mandate” will be mentioned in the days ahead. Mostly I see apologies for Events by conservatives…”oh, no Republican could have won in this environment,” somehow ignoring the realities of the last eight years, as if that’s had no effect. (And for that matter, logically they’re implicitly saying “we suck on the economy”, the biggest admission that Republicans are worse for the middle class’s wallet, which I think is funny there wasn’t anyone loudly underlining that.)
Now I expect a lot of “Well, you know. Events.” Nothing about a mandate. Less about the accomplishment and more about how the “tsunami” simply pushed Obama into the white house, as if against his will.
November 5th, 2008 00:30
So. Not so over?
November 5th, 2008 01:19
So those 51% of us that voted for socialism…
November 5th, 2008 12:13
Best. Election. Ever.
November 5th, 2008 13:06
Best. Election. Ever. Right up until our election party turned from MSNBC to the local channels so the hostess and her wife could see California’s ballot proposition results.
November 5th, 2008 16:18
Yep, it’s always great when 50% + 1 can force the other 49% around.
That’s the reason the Federal Government wasn’t supposed to be powerful in the first place. Today’s government is far beyond its constitutional limits. That’s why there’s no real respect for the Constitution on either side of the aisle.
November 5th, 2008 16:22
BTW, I did always enjoy watching McCain call Obama “socialist.” One socialist calling the other socialist a “socialist.”
November 5th, 2008 18:28
I have a feeling that the moderates who went Dem this time to punish the Republicans are going to have a “wait, he’s doing WHAT?!” moment in the next year or so.
Even though I’m libertarian (essentially a republican who smokes pot), I have to hand it to the left wing — last night was a flawless victory for them, and if they play their cards right, they can be in power for decades…wake me when it’s over.
November 5th, 2008 19:26
I’m a libertarian, but I strongly disagree with this characterization because:
I don’t smoke pot (but I don’t think it should be illegal either).
I’m not even close to being a Republican (at least not of the neocon variety).
I think the last eight years has shown the “worst of the worst” of what neocon-conservatism can do.
There’s actually a pretty good explanation of the libertarian-authoritarian-left-right spectrum here. (as a side note, Marshall Fritz, the founder of “The Advocates for Self-Government” where the quiz is hosted, passed away yesterday from cancer).
November 5th, 2008 19:27
I guess “ul” and “li” aren’t recognized so the unordered list I used didn’t exactly work out….
November 6th, 2008 02:54
I’m somewhat of a socialist libertarian, personally: I think that the freest market can be built upon a thin foundation of socialism. In part because the knowledge of a safety net will make more people more willing to compete than if failure meant abject financial ruination, but also because of the nature of competition itself: There are, inherently, winners and losers, and not everyone is guaranteed to win even at all. We have a moral obligation to compensate for the immense imbalance of opportunity and the effects of entrenchment, and it’s time that we as a species stopped focusing so much on the primitive “what’s mine is mine” mentality designed to propagate one’s seed more so than other members of the species, and more on the advancement of the species as a whole. Given our state of technology, the time for individual human evolutionary changes through population bottlenecks and mass die-offs and such is effectively over.
And etc, etc, blah blah, nobody cares I’m sure, but I’m in a talkative mood.
November 6th, 2008 13:42
Dekken: yes. I had to laugh every time Obama was called “the most liberal Senator”, “radically liberal,” etc. Obama has already played a hand in Prop 8 in California being passed, so. Saying “a marriage is between a man and a woman” is hardly a liberal position.
J: great analogy I heard on this: you want referees in a football game. You don’t expect the referees to play, no one does. But they keep consistent rules for everyone. (In theory. But it’s still better than them not being there at all.)
November 6th, 2008 17:54
Considering there actually *is* a socialist elected to the Senate, Obama’s far from the top five liberals.
Note that Mr. Change is building his staff from Chicago Machine cronies, Clinton appointees, and Republicans, though. The latter actually bothers me least; I don’t mind bipartisan efforts. But the Chicago and Clinton people? Change is passed out in the gutter ready to wake up with a huge bruise on the back of its head.
November 6th, 2008 18:12
I’m left-winged as well as right-winged. That might immediately register as an error to some of you, but it’s true. Both sides have valid points, although they’re often taken to a higher extreme than called for. Read as all of us are “something”, but require an explanation that launches your black-or-white categorization into a gray area.
Obviously, none of these ‘systems’ can work as they are… ‘this’ or ‘that’, ‘one’ or ‘the other’, etc.. I hope somewhere in our lifetimes actually comes an era where people have a (gasp!) third choice, and possibly more. We need something new. We’re too far down the spiral to rely on old practices that worked (or never worked) for their respected times in history.
November 7th, 2008 00:07
Josh, you’re a socialist libertarian too! Awesome.
I wonder if there actually is such a thing.