Bush's Mandate

As the Dems lick their wounds the day after, here's a common theme emerging in their discussions:

The claim that Bush has a mandate is a joke. This was a squeaker. 51% voted for Bush. That means 49%, virtually half of the country, opposes him.

I beg to differ. Bush, in fact, has a clear mandate of almost 100% for those areas where Kerry agreed with him, including the big two:

1. Continue to hunt terrorists globally.


2. Maintain the commitment in Iraq.

Kerry, on numerous occasions, endorsed the above. Indeed, he did so largely because he would have had no chance otherwise. They were common policy themes from both campaigns; judge for yourself how sincere each candidate's advocacy was, but these policies were definitely in each candidate's platform. Candidates who took different positions on these most important of election issues got almost nothing.

And so either candidate, having won, gets a mandate of near-unanimity on the above 2 points, which is what Bush now has. Kerry's platform still has consequences for Democrats.

This will anger some of them, the ones who felt that Kerry was only giving lip-service to the policies, all the while expecting him to do the opposite if elected. But they need to learn: if you advocate something, you give the winner a mandate to implement it.