The word of the day is "mandate".

George Bush has stated that he has received a "mandate" from the American people. I heard Senator John McCain discuss George Bush's "mandate" on television this morning.

Mandate! Mandate! Mandate!

The reason being offered for claiming this "mandate"? The "fact" that George Bush received "a majority of the popular vote"!

Ha ha! Receiving 51% of the popular vote apparently gives George Bush a mandate! Coming within one state of being tossed out of office apparently gives George Bush a mandate! Having to wait until Wednesday morning to have your opponent concede the election apparently gives George Bush a mandate! Losing New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Michigan apparently gives George Bush a mandate!

Of course, there is no mandate.

And yet the Republicans claim a "mandate" that they will now use to try and impose their economic and "moral" beliefs upon this country. Oh, Iraq! Oh, the tax implications! Oh, our federal court system! Oh, the creepy joke that is the American government!

There is no mandate! Do not tell us that you have received a mandate! You have no mandate! A mandate does not exist!

No mandate! We are here! We will howl at your every move! We will prepare for 2006 and 2008! We believe in fair play, honesty, compassion, hard work and freedom! We believe in expressing these ideals through our actions rather than our hollow words! We reject the politics of fear, privilege and opportunism! We are the true patriots!

This is our country!

Fear us!

Been played my ass. There is absolutely nothing wrong with voting for someone you don't like. Why would someone like me do that? Well, I voted for Kerry because there are more things at stake than my dignity. I don't want a republican majority in DC. I don't want more oil to come from Alaska. So what if the other guy isn't great? Less damage is better. An acre saved is an acre earned, if you will. In the meantime, shove your thrashing "this is bullshit" argument up the ass. You know quite well you have no chance.

quartermain wrote:Can he memorise the phone book, count toothpicks or perform any other good party tricks?

I could be wrong, but I remember hearing that this is not a requirement for idiot savantism.

-noah

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:Of course, there is no mandate.

You're not alone:

http://www.notamandate.org/

Tom wrote:

n.c. wrote:

bellulah wrote:hey - i'll bite. i was one of the bush voters. here's my quick reason: i think we need to focus on domestic issues more, and in order to do that we need out of iraq, and i think the best way to accomplish that is NOT to change the enitre leadership structure of the country leading the charge over there.

i don't enjoy bush's environmental record (read: lack thereof), and i've been told john edwards has a good one, but how often do you hear of a VP passing a clean water act?

that's all folks! thanks for flushing me out noah.

josh

You are seriously, really, incredibly, stupid. You are as one of the toothless fools spitting out whatever rhetoric has been shoved down their throats in the Ohio diners the ABC newscasters were interveiwing this morning. Seriously, you are clearly - and I don't want to mince words or in any way be unclear here - you are clearly an uniteligent, non-creative, and entirely worthless piece of shit, road block in the quest for a better world. Please, I mean PLEASE kill yourself, but first, since you care about this, sign up and go serve the country in Iraq. As long as your death doesn't matter because you will never in your life make anything better, you may as well take a bullet where someone who, unlike you, possibly does not deserve to die.

-n

It's attitudes like this that make me not want to come to this board. I understand that your pissed off, but telling someone to go kill yourself because you disagree with them is fucking sickening. Here's to free and open discourse eh?

If you voted for Bush, you voted for someone who beleives that if a girls father rapes them and impregnates them, they should not be allowed to have an abortion. Live with that.

You also voted for the war, so go help out, okay? If there was an army I could join to help stop the war, I would join it.

-n

stewie wrote:

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:Of course, there is no mandate.

You're not alone:

http://www.notamandate.org/

Tucker Carlson, that bowtied, conservative CNN dork, wrote today that: "Winning the majority of the popular vote is a mandate and nothing cools tempers more than a mandate."

Wtf?

If I hear "mandate" enough, am I supposed to capitulate? Am I to abandon all efforts toward criticism and resistance?

Hey! Winning the popular vote means just that -- you won the popular vote!

With 51%! And razor thin margin in Ohio!

And the Ohio vote smells very funny!

And who cares what New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle or D.C. have to say! Tulsa, Boise and Little Rock are where the "real" Americans live!

A mandate? Wtf? 51%?

Wtf?

From www.dailykos.com:

- This is the largest number of people who have ever voted AGAINST a president

- 1% more than 50% is not a mandate but a bare, thin, majority.

- At 80% approval after 9-11 and guaranteed a landslide election by prognosticators 2 years ago, only half the country supports him

- A president who leads a divided country owes it to all Americans to lead fairly or have his party face the consequences begining in 2006. No one else is here to blame.

- Assuming Bush gets New Mexico and Iowa, he will have gotten the lowest percentage of electoral votes (54%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Wilson. If those two states should swing Kerry's way (NM might), it'll be even lower.

- He will have won with the lowest percentage of the popular vote (51%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (well, technically since Clinton, but he also ran against Perot, who was a more significant 3rd-party candidate than Thurmond and Wallace were in '48 )

- He will have won by the lowest margin of the popular vote (3.5M) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (2.1M, and back then only 50M voted).

- He will have won the three states that put him over 270 (OH, NM and IA--assuming the last two go his way) by only 161,989 (not counting the provisional ballots, absentee, etc.).


In short, mandate my left nut.

stewie wrote:http://www.notamandate.org/

I have already printed out one of their signs and affixed it to my front window. Its the the least I can do at this very moment, but I will continue to do my part to hold my elected representatives responsible and informed of the concerns held by those represented

Thanks for the link stewie,

Tim

I voted for Badnarik, and really wanted gridlock. I had a feeling the House and Senate were going right, but my friends had me convinced that Kerry was going to take it. It made sense, with the new voters, and the last election being so close, and the unpopular war. Looking back I think the thing was lost before Kerry was the candidate. I do not begrudge people for gay marriage summer, but I think it is the smoking gun this time around. Unless the hearts and minds of this country change some, the next election is going to be even more dramatic, especially if the economy is better, and the occupation has ended.

stewie, i have heard from multiple teevee-related sources that bush received the largest number of popular votes in the history of the country. FWIW.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:stewie, i have heard from multiple teevee-related sources that bush received the largest number of popular votes in the history of the country. FWIW.

He also got the largest number of people voting against him.