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Did Obama win a mandate with his reelection as president?

Did Obama win a mandate with his reelection?

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Is anyone else sick and tired of the word mandate?

Who cares if he has a mandate or not? All that matters is he was elected based, in part, on the campaign promises he made. He owes it to the electorate to do his best to keep those campaign promises. And yes, the Republicans in Congress were elected by their constituents in part based on their campaign promises and, likewise, they owe it to their constituents to do their best to keep those campaign promises.

Same ol', same ol'.
 
mac said:
Popular vote was 51/49. You know this. The actual votes are more important than the electoral college.
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Gee, Presudent G W Bush got less popular votes than Gore in 2000 and yet he became President.
President G W Bush got about 3.6 million votes than Kerry in 2004.
President Obama got about 3.5 million votes than Romney in 2012.

Just sayin....
 
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The election was too close, I don't think anyone got a mandate.
 
No. It was pretty much a 50/50 split with what? something like a less than 5% margin? I mean really, that is no mandate. Of course that's just me as people have different views on what is an acceptable margin for a "mandate."
 
As far a I can tell, Obama ran on one thing--to raise taxes on the rich--and he won. So I guess he has a mandate to do that even though convincing 51% of the people to raise taxes on someone else is not a real accomplishment. But republicans should give him his sole issue so that people can see how meaningless that tax increase really is and how empty the Obama tank of ideas really is.
 
Nah, he didn't win a mandate. In fact I think the whole concept that suggests if you won an election in a big way, that means you can ignore often evolving public sentiment is arrogant and the best way to see your approval ratings drop. He won a second term but he'd be wise to pursue policy that is popularly supported.

What did happen and is happening more is the beginning of a powerful national Democratic party due to shifting demographic tends. However, if this goes to the party's head and they use that position of greater influence to ram policies through that are not universally popular, they'll lose that position of greater influence. They need to always remember, the people are the boss and they are the employees.
 
minnie616 said:
Gee, Presudent G W Bush got less popular votes than Gore in 2000 and yet he became President.
President G W Bush got about 3.6 million votes than Kerry in 2004.
President Obama got about 3.5 million votes than Romney in 2012.

Just sayin....
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Yeah, You're saying what I'm saying. If Obama got a mandate...so did Bush.
 
iguanaman said:
Then Bush lost the 2000 election to Gore and the entire 8 year nightmare was all a dream.
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You're missing the point. All this fuss over getting a mandate simply for winning the election is hogwash.
 
Jonsa said:
No, I do have an issue, I do not beleive Mr. Bush ran on a platform that said, elect me and I'll invade Iraq. It wasn't until 2002 he started focusing on Iraq and invaded before the 2004 election.

He had no mandate to go to war.
What transpired was that democracy worked and the elected officials made the call in supporting both war initiatives. That is why there are elected representatives of the people, they are empowered to make decisions on the people's behalf when unexpected things come up.
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Then why did he get re-elected after going to war? A mandate, that's why. :shrug:
 
minnie616 said:
Romney won in 22 states.
President Obama won in 28 states and DC,

United States presidential election, 2012 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Romney won the great majority of Counties across the US.

2012election.jpg
 
Navy Pride said:
What do you think?
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Obama won with a second chance not a mandate. He and billy convinced people nobody could have fixed this economy in 4 years. We will see how people feel when it's been six years and the next election for congress rolls around, he can't blame Bush forever.
 
I think people are trying to play a semantics game here. Look at the wording of the question asked...

Did Obama win a mandate with his reelection?

Any candidate who wins an election has a mandate by the standard definition. This is not what the original poster was asking for unless it was a trick question? The popular definition meaning something similar to: Approval from the majority of voters to implement the elected officials campaign promises on their behalf. would be more accurate.
 
dyanaprajna2011 said:
I love this map. It's so inaccurate. There's no way Romney won this many counties, and still lost the election. This is the vast majority of the US. Gotta love Republican propaganda.
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The blue areas are also the most populated, so it's plausible.
 
He trounced Romney in the Electoral College and won a solid 3 point victory in the popular vote with a clear majority. Despite having to defend 2/3 of the existing seats that were up, his party actually GAINED in the Senate - something hardly anyone predicted six months ago . His party also picked up seats and votes in the House. Yes, the President can rightly claim a mandate.
 
spud_meister said:
The blue areas are also the most populated, so it's plausible.
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That may be true. But even still, there doesn't look to be enough blue on that map for it to be possible, but I don't know population stats for each county, either, so you may be right.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
So did a republicant majority in the house (again). 30 states have republicant governors too. Squeaking by (51%/49%?) in a race between the devil we know (big gov't demorat) and the devil we don't know (big gov't republicant) is hardly a mandate to let Obama be king, especially considering that he got more of the popular vote last time.
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It's not a mandate to be King, but he did win A mandate. Not a huge strong one to do whatever he wants, but he did get a mandate to at least do his job.

Of course it would be nice if he did what he was elected to do....
 
mac said:
Romney won the great majority of Counties across the US.

View attachment 67138137
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Counties don't vote, people do. Some of those counties have less population than the precinct I live in. So it's a popular conservative idea that you should win based on square mileage, but you win based on votes.
 
rocket88 said:
It's not a mandate to be King, but he did win A mandate. Not a huge strong one to do whatever he wants, but he did get a mandate to at least do his job.

Of course it would be nice if he did what he was elected to do....
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That was, indeed, the point of my first post in this thread. Obama is a much better campaigner than a governor, he has a terrible tendency to simply let congress do nothing and play king by ignoring the law and doing things as he wishes the law to be. He signed the "cliff" bill yet still pretends that he is somehow owed a different result because he "has a mandate", he can't get support for the "dream act" so he enforces (or rather not enforces) the actual immigration law to suit his "feelings". Yes he did!
 
mac said:
Romney won the great majority of Counties across the US.

View attachment 67138137
Click to expand...

Interestingly, liberals only have two blue states according to that map. :D

It just so happens that one of those states wants to leave the union.
 
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Blackdog said:
I think people are trying to play a semantics game here. Look at the wording of the question asked...

Did Obama win a mandate with his reelection?

Any candidate who wins an election has a mandate by the standard definition. This is not what the original poster was asking for unless it was a trick question? The popular definition meaning something similar to: Approval from the majority of voters to implement the elected officials campaign promises on their behalf. would be more accurate.
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Exactly. You got that the point was "Did Obama get appointed dictator?" Which is of course, beyond false.
 
Henrin said:
Interestingly, liberals only have two blue state according to that map and only hold the majority in terms of counties of four states. :D
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Then amend the Constitution so that there's one vote per square mile. Good luck with that.
 
I don't think Obama has a mandate -- it's more like the Republicans have been given a mandate to clean up their act and offer better choices next time around.

In other words, it's not that Obama is so great, it's that the Republicans sucked that bad.
 
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