The emperor has no mandate
No, America is not a "center Left nation."
See the post below.
There seems to be a real vogue on the Left these days for reading earth shattering, seismic ideological shifts into an anomylous election in which ideology probably played less of a role than any election in my lifetime- and in which the winning candidate, having run as essentially an enigma, has absolutely no mandate for any particular course of action.
I guess if my party had just carried a majority of the American electorate for only the second time in 44 years, I'd also be tempted to read things into the result that just aren't there. There is no question that the Republican party was soundly repudiated on on Nov. 4. But what all those left wing columnists and bloggers seem to miss is, first, that the Democratic Congress is even more unpopular than George W. Bush with the electorate that chose Mr. Obama, and, secondly, that our new chief executive so carefully avoided laying out an ideological agenda that it would have been hard to find much ideological significance even in a much more lopsided victory.
The fact of the matter is that President-elect Obama has no mandate.
None.
Zip- unless it's a kind of generic mandate to "govern from the center," such as might have theoretically been given to either party.
Here is another Washington Post article that has a much more realistic take on the election just past than we're getting from the MSM generally.
The argument will be settled, of course in two years. If this was truly an ideologically realigning election, the pattern will hold in the mid-term elections in 2010.
Personally, I wouldn't bet on it. This election was about spanking the elephant, not kissing anybody's donkey.
HT: Real Clear Politics
See the post below.
There seems to be a real vogue on the Left these days for reading earth shattering, seismic ideological shifts into an anomylous election in which ideology probably played less of a role than any election in my lifetime- and in which the winning candidate, having run as essentially an enigma, has absolutely no mandate for any particular course of action.
I guess if my party had just carried a majority of the American electorate for only the second time in 44 years, I'd also be tempted to read things into the result that just aren't there. There is no question that the Republican party was soundly repudiated on on Nov. 4. But what all those left wing columnists and bloggers seem to miss is, first, that the Democratic Congress is even more unpopular than George W. Bush with the electorate that chose Mr. Obama, and, secondly, that our new chief executive so carefully avoided laying out an ideological agenda that it would have been hard to find much ideological significance even in a much more lopsided victory.
The fact of the matter is that President-elect Obama has no mandate.
None.
Zip- unless it's a kind of generic mandate to "govern from the center," such as might have theoretically been given to either party.
Here is another Washington Post article that has a much more realistic take on the election just past than we're getting from the MSM generally.
The argument will be settled, of course in two years. If this was truly an ideologically realigning election, the pattern will hold in the mid-term elections in 2010.
Personally, I wouldn't bet on it. This election was about spanking the elephant, not kissing anybody's donkey.
HT: Real Clear Politics
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