Obama Misreads his Mandate
In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one’s own image.
Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.
Emphasis added. Read the whole thing.
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it’s all about “power”
plain and simple
obama…..ech, i’ll start to refer to him as bo from now on…..mr krauthammer is correct in that bo misread his mandate
& bo misread his mandate in the worst possible way
i thought bo ran on a mandate of “change”?
the “change” he wants & is trying to force down the throat of america is NOT the same change as the voters voted for, & the voters are now realizing that
the press isn’t-the MSM still thinks it’s the “honeymood period”-hence the attacks on americans who dare to open their mouths & question their government & leaders
i think i’ll go get one of those liberal bumper stickers-you know which one: “dissent is patriotic”
throw it right back into their face!
we all knew bo was/is human, it’s just that his fall isn’t complete just yet-& i’m Praying that the rest of his fall from grace happens quickly, suddenly, & publicly!
Comment by NARNC60AC — September 6, 2009 @ 2:35 pm - September 6, 2009
You cannot misread something that does not exist and there was no mandate. What the Left did was attempt to use an election based on deceit and fraud to manufacture a mandate and as we are hopefully seeing, that is falling apart.
Comment by Not Always RIght — September 6, 2009 @ 2:49 pm - September 6, 2009
I know it’s long, but I did a blog post the night of the election and thought it was interesting enough to repost here:
It looks as though Obama will go on to win this election.
I would like to congratulate all my friends on the left for this victory. Let me say a few things…
None of these victories in swing states were by very large margins. Even in Florida and Ohio, the largest margins were about 100k to, 150k in favor of Obama. Smaller states like Indiana were like 5k, and even Montana seems to have pulled a large margin for Obama. Obama now finds himself in a position not unlike Bush in ’04, pulling out a victory, but with no real clear mandate, but small margins in key states. While some may call this a referendum, I would most likely classify it as a victory for a well run campaign, assisted by a media that remains in the tank and completely without objectivity. I do not believe this is America turning to socialism, as it could be argued, but rather, a necessary and hopefully productive rejection of a Republican party that had 6 to 8 years to display any commitment to conservative values of limited government, personal liberty and freedom, or fiscal responsibility, but instead gave us trillions of debt, less freedoms, an unpopular war, less government accountability and an increase in government size and spending. I can understand that what turned out to be 1-3% of independent or republican voters in a handful of key states giving the victory to the Dems.
I’ll advise my friends on the left to recognize some things about tonight. You outspent the Republicans by margins of between $400 to what may turn out to be over $700 million when all the finals reports are done. (Bloomberg has final numbers just above $650 million) You had a media that not only declined to vet your candidate, but was completely in the tank for him and had sensations running up their legs about him. You had an unpopular war, soaring energy prices, lowest ever approval ratings for Congress and a president. You have people losing their homes to banks and record numbers of job losses. You had Congress magically print over a trillion dollars to bailout banks and poorly run companies. You had anyone with a credit card on any part of the Earth able to contribute to your cause. You had a stammering 72 yr old man with an inexperienced Stepford Wife as his running mate. *ok, that’s a cheap shot*
AND YET… you only beat the Republicans by about 300,000 votes in a handful of states. The American people do not agree with you on fundamentals of wealth redistribution, universal health care, abortion, death penalty or many of the other policies or platforms in your party. But the are tired of voting for the party that precludes to share their values and see quite the opposite come to fruition year after year. In a way, it’s sick and sad you had all the things going for you, and could only pull out minor victories of 1-3 percentage points. Learn from this when deciding what policies and directions to take in the next 2 years, or like Bill Clinton, you will see new emerging Republican leadership, who will hopefully be smart enough to return to Reagan conservative values, taking back the 2 houses of Congress in 2010.
Again, congrats to all interested parties, it’s your night to celebrate your victory. I did not vote, and would not have voted for McCain even if I had been home.
As a note, preliminay numbers show that Bans on Gay Marriage in California, Florida, Arizona and a ban on gay adoption in Arkansas have all passed. And people won’t talk to me cause I’m a “gay republican.” Last time we elected a Democrat to the presidency we got Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Federal Marriage Amendment. Forgive me if I don’t piss my pants. I don’t know what I hate worse. Idiots who think taking away rights from a group somehow gets them eternal salvation, or idiots who think taxing rich people will create jobs and grow an economy.
Where is Lincoln buried? I feel like reenacting Weekend at Bernie’s with his corpse.
My final election prediction… Dow Jones down tomorrow… Gun sales up.
Comment by Tim — September 6, 2009 @ 2:59 pm - September 6, 2009
One of his promises and mandates I do recall was the
NET SPENDING CUT. hehe
That one is costing him the fiscal independents.
He’s cruisin for a huge loss in 2010 and 2012.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 7, 2009 @ 3:11 pm - September 7, 2009
Can I ask the lefitsts in here why our post partisian, post racial, bi partisian President only goes to speak at friendly,
fawning, same opinion as him, crowds? Would it be too much to ask him to grow some onions and go speak to a crowd of real Americans, some of whom disagree with him, and try to convince them of his arguments? Instead of speaking to cheering crowds of liberal sycophants. 70% of Americans don’t want his socialist health care sceme. Could he try to convince those people, instead of speaking to the nutty unions who ran good American companies into the ground.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 7, 2009 @ 8:27 pm - September 7, 2009
Here’s an interesting article One way to ruin Labor Day
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — September 7, 2009 @ 10:08 pm - September 7, 2009
oops,
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — September 7, 2009 @ 10:09 pm - September 7, 2009
“Obama misread his mandate”?
I thought when metro-sexuals went out on a man-date it was called a Buddies Night? Obama misread his man-date? What, did someone want to shoot some hoops and someone thought it was all about rimming?
Sorry, my bad.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — September 10, 2009 @ 10:26 am - September 10, 2009