The election can be rigged by one side, we saw that in 2000 with Al Gore losing in Florida to George W Bush. This time around Democrats didn't need Florida, who are still counting votes weeks after the election. This time however, with so many states voting for one side, it would have to be a massive fraud and Democrats could be intellectual enough to pull something like that off with all those universities plotting with the best and brightest minds.
Yet we're told this qualifies as a "landslide" and a "mandate". What a crock! Still not seeing how that makes it a "landslide", giving Obama a "mandate" for his policies. It's not intended to. Really no idea what the point of that statement was. Your partisanship is showing. This post is a lot of condescension. I don't need the ins and outs of the electoral system explained to me. Not a bit of that explanation adds up to this being a "landslide", giving Obama a "mandate" to any mind but the utterly partisan.
I would have approach her and given her a hug! And I am certain that in Frankfurt and all other cities in Germany and all over Europe, The greatest majority of the people (i mean, not 51%, but more like 85%) were very supportive of her opinion, if not of her fashion sense! So eat crow!
Well, I would say that being elected with almost 100 electoral votes more than his opponent (and it will probably be closer to 126 votes more than his opponent when Florida finally completes that painful election fiasco triggered by Governor Scott) IS a mandate, especially since President Obama (and even Romney) made certain that these election offered a CLEAR choice between two different paths for America! You're just another sore loser!
Well, I would say that being elected with almost 100 electoral votes more than his opponent (and it will probably be closer to 126 votes more than his opponent when Florida finally completes that painful election fiasco triggered by Governor Scott) IS a mandate, especially since President Obama (and even Romney) made certain that these election offered a CLEAR choice between two different paths for America! You're just another sore loser!
Here's the reality: If just 100 people voted in each State that Obama won and 10 voted for Romney in those States Obama would still be President. And yes, it would be a landslide victory and he would have earned a mandate. The Repub can run as a Repub but if he doesn't appeal to the Dems over the Dem candidate he will lose. The Red States don't have enough electoral votes. It doesn't matter how many votes he gets in the Red States. He will lose the election.
Perfect candidate in the twilight zone maybe. Where do you feeble wheezes get this kind of talking point garbage? Romney was the Budweiser candidate.
No, you have that backwards. He was born Barack Hussein Obama and later given the name Soetoro by his second father in Indonesia. geez.....
There's a report in the BBC that Barack has edged out Mitt in Florida, which will add another 29 electoral votes to his margin of victory. Can't Florida ever count their ballots quickly?
"Is this just math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?" - Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly to Karl Rove as Rove denied the Ohio results Kind of sums up the Republican party, doesn't it? From economics to science to evaluating the electorate, they are clueless. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/07/karl_rove_on_fox_news_the_five_stages_of_conservative_grief.html
And I would say that getting only 50% of the popular vote makes this far from being a mandate. Some people might be easily wowed by the numbers related to electoral college math, but I'm not one of them. I understand the difference between winning with a 50% popular vote/300-350 electoral votes versus winning with 60% or more of the popular vote/450-500 or more electoral votes. The latter is a landslide, burying the opponent so decisively that one can claime a "mandate". The former is still a fairly close race. This raises the question as to which matters more in qualifying a vote as providing a mandate. Should it be % received of the popular vote, or the electoral vote? The electoral vote is about choosing the executive who represents the states' interests in the federal government that unites them. The popular vote is arguably a measure of how actual people feel about the policy positions of the party, and that party's chosen candidate. Which should determine a "mandate" - the interests of state governments, or the opinions of actual people? I'm a strong supporter of the republican (small 'r') style of government, but that doesn't mean I wholly discount how actual people feel about the policies of those who represent them in that government. I would therefore say that to claim a mandate, there has to be a substantial, significant, decisive, (insert similar adjective here) gap between the winner and loser of the popular vote. And that simply is not the case here. Again, the fact that we're dealing with really big numbers overall shouldn't be what impresses us. We should instead be looking at the big picture in which 2,841,831 votes is only a 2.4% difference between the winner and loser. The fact that it's a difference of a few million popular votes or a few hundred electoral votes sholdn't excite us just because we see the words "millions" or "hundreds". It's the spread between the winner and loser that should tell us whether or not it's a "landslide" providing a "mandate", and 2.4% is neither. No, I'm not. I'm an independent who seriously considered voting for a third party but just couldn't sign on to some of their more radical ideas. In the end, Obama didn't win my vote; he received it as a matter of default. There was no way I was going to vote Republican given their big government positions on social issues and foreign policy positions that resulted in two wars and "nation building". So despite my serious misgivings about Obama signing the NDAA, I held my nose and voted for him anyway, somewhat encouraged that one of the lower courts has already ruled against the provisions I judged to be unconstitutional. In other words, the guy I ended up voting for won. That does not make me a "sore loser" by any stretch of the imagination. It makes me a thoroughly disgusted independent who exercised what I view as my duty to vote, despite my strong desire to sit this one out completely. Regardless of all that, my position on this "landslide" and "mandate" stuff isn't a result of partisan or political motivation - it's purely a matter of calling bull(*)(*)(*)(*) for what it is.
Yet they could just get a job to support their kids. If you legalise drugs the price will be so low that they could get a job to support their habit. You are trying to separate the two things to keep a downtrodden class to use for political expedience. I know you people too well.
the bottom line is that he won and all the stupid things you said before and during the election, just show that you don't know what you're talking about
Obama got fewer votes than GW Bush did against Kerry. This means we didn't get the republicans out to vote in the swing states. Nothing more than that. Romney was percieved as too liberal. Time to change your signature line. Ron Paul isn't running for anything any more.
Counting the congressional votes shows Democrats received 50.3% of the total votes for House candidates. The point is that Republicans only keep the House because they gerrymandered it so successfully in the 2010 redistricting. And that they should understand how fragile their hold is, and thus not try to push an extremist agenda.
Indeed, that should be the takeaway from both the congressional races and the presidential race. People don't want extremity, they don't want stubborn, digging-in-the-heels, doubling-down partisanship. They're looking to our leaders to work together, and to find what unites us. I think non-partisans and moderates are really, really, 17x really tired of the extreme partisanship and resulting polarization. I know I sure am.
He does have a mandate, whether people like it or not - he was elected under the electoral system just like every other president, and as I understand it on a pretty high turnout. It might have been a relatively close election, but the fact is he did win it, so he does have a mandate. If the views of the people aren't reflected adequately in the electoral system, then the electoral system is wrong - pointless complaining about the mandate of the winner who won under that system, though - he won fair and square, and he has his electoral mandate as much or as little as any previous president. If there's a problem with the electoral system not adequately reflecting the views of the population, that is what needs to be complained about.
