LostInaFog.com

Elections are magical events for revealing all of our filters. As I stayed up late last night marveling that at one point less than 400 votes separated Obama and McCain in Missouri with more than 3.5 million votes cast there, one of the conservative talking heads on CNN made the comment that by any historical standards this was not a landslide win (agreed) and certainly not a mandate for left wing liberal policies. I suspect this particular commenter viewed anything left of the far right of the republican party as falling into that liberal bucket.

So perhaps a little perspective is called for on this election versus the last two. Obama’s margin in the popular vote last night was nearly three times greater than the combined popular vote spread in Bush’s 2000 and 2004 wins. Obama’s electoral vote spread (lets assume North Carolina goes to Obama and Missouri to McCain, though neither are assured at the moment), is nearly 5 times greater than Bush’s from 2 elections.

[Real numbers to substantiate: in 2000 Bush lost the popular vote by 540K votes, and in 2004 won it by 3012K votes. As of this moment, Obama is up by 7333K. Bush won in 2000 by 271-266 and in 2004 by 286-252, a margin of 39 total electoral votes. As of now (with NC and MO caveats above) Obama won by 364-190.]

Here are some quotes from conservative commentators following the 2004 election:

Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it. Now is the time to begin our long, national cultural renewal (”The Great Relearning,” as novelist Tom Wolfe calls it) — no less in legislation than in federal court appointments. It is, after all, the main reason George W. Bush was reelected.
–William J Bennett in National Review

So the lawyers didn’t decide this election after all. The voters did–including millions of conservative first-timers whom the exit polls and media missed–emerging from the pews and exurban driveways to give President Bush what by any measure is a decisive mandate for a second term.

Never mind the closeness of the electoral vote, this time Mr. Bush easily won the popular vote, the first President to win more than 50% since his father in 1988. The Republican gains in both Houses of Congress mean Mr. Bush also had coattails, unlike Nixon in 1972 and even Reagan in 1984.

…Above all, we think Mr. Bush can claim a mandate on his handling of the war on terror. … We won’t know for years whether this really was “the most important election in our lifetime,” as John Kerry so often said. We do already know, however, that Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive.

–The Wall Street Journal

I don’t suggest that President Obama should follow President Bush’s example and push a strictly partisan agenda. Certainly if the country understood in 2004 what we only learned later about extraordinary renditions, torture, illegal wiretapping of US citizens, etc., the 2004 election would have been decided differently.

I hope President Obama will seek to govern from a centrist position. If nothing else, even his detractors must admit that he showed again and again in his campaign the willingness to engage thoughtfully with those who disagree with him. He will make mistakes and he will have victories. I will disagree with him, no doubt, on a myriad of issues. But I support wholeheartedly his uniting vision for leadership of this country and the world.