Yesterday we saw history with Barack Obama becoming the first African-American elected to the White House and with a strong electoral and popular vote victory, but we did not see the mandate that some now claim.
History shows us that this was actually not a very big win in either electoral or popular vote margins and thus claiming a mandate could cost us the same type of political capital that it cost Bush in 2004 when he did the same thing. This doesn't mean that Obama cannot use his first term to get that mandate and swing the country from center/center-right to center-left by 2012 and he has actually been set up to do exactly that by the Republicans if he plays his cards right (and gets a little lucky too).
Here are my keys to getting that mandate by 2012 and setting up another complete realignment:
- Start off slowly with policies/legislation that will be nearly universally popular (with voters, we don't care about the R's in the House/Senate). I am thinking things like children's health care and economic recovery stuff here.
- Let the economy recover. Other than some popular and probably needed stimulus stuff, let the economy recover on its own (you've got the time). Economic recovery will greatly improve Obama's popularity, which will allow him to:
- Put in place his tax policies and some spending initiatives once the recovery is well underway. During a recovery, any "negative" aspects of these policies will be quickly swept under the rug (see Clinton's tax hikes in the early 90's).
- Get our troops home (this probably comes before the economic stuff, but I wrote those first). This needs to be done for both economic and non-economic reasons and accomplishes two tasks, it slows down the growth of our debt and it reduces the chance of something bad happening to our troops overseas that could hurt a chance at reelection.
- Win reelection in 2012 in a landslide and use his coattails to get to 60 in the Senate. This will give Obama and Congress a mandate to move to the left and should also usher in a new Democratic Epoch in our political history.
- Now, hit the big stuff (ie Universal Health Care, etc.)
Historic Big Presidential Wins:
George HW over Dukakis 426-111
Reagan over Mondale 525-13
Reagan over Carter 489-49
Nixon over McGovern 520-17
Johnson over Goldwater 486-52
Ike over Stephenson 457-73 and 442-89
Roosevelt over anyone 432-99, 449-82, 523-8, and 472-59