As of last night, Rachel Maddow, one of the progressive movement's most vociferous champions, was definitely iffy on the subject. She was clear that it was a solid win, but landslide...not so sure. At least not as of that moment in time. In general, I've been noticing that while Obama's victory margin has been significant, solid, and the largest for any democrat since 1964 (or republican since 1988), I find the word landslide curiously absent from the parlance of the punditry and general news media.
But with the news that North Carolina has now been called for Obama by none other than the right leaning AP, the calculus has changed. And with the news that Nebraska for the first time ever may in fact be splitting it's electoral votes to add yet one more onto Obama's pile, it's a question that deserves another look.
As of last night, the generally accepted electoral vote count stood at Obama 349, McCain 163 with two states still adding up their votes, namely Missouri and North Carolina. At that moment in time, if both of those states had been awarded to McCain the count would have stood at 349 to 188. On a percentile basis that comes to 65% to 35%. Just a hairs breadth away from a 2 to 1 margin, which by any stretch of the imagination would be considered an overwhelming victory, or in common parlance, landslide if you will.
Well as I mentioned previously, today that calculus has changed. With the addition of North Carolina, Obama's total goes to 364 electoral votes, and even if we cede the ground on Missouri and Nebraska (the latter of which is now very much in doubt) he comes away with a maximum of 174 electoral votes. A 68% to 32% margin, more than two to one.
That's greater than the margin it takes to override a presidential veto, the point at which congress can render a president legislatively impotent, or that required to ratify a new constitutional amendment, for the record that has only happened 27 times in the entire history of this nation and most recently has not happened since 1992.
Suffice it to say that a margin of 2-1 is pretty hard to come by in American politics. With the problems this nation and it's new president are facing, a clear mandate is something this country desperately needs it's leadership to have. And in a case like this, when bragging rights have so clearly been earned by the president elect, it's nothing short of irresponsible for the MSM to continue leaving the "L" word out of their descriptions. Indeed their continued refusal to use this word calls their journalistic objectivity seriously into question.
It's time to call a spade a spade. 2 to 1 is a landslide by any measure, and it's high time that the media begin to honestly frame their discussions by use of that word.
Update
In response to a few of the doubters below, according to Ed Rollins:
Ed Rollins, who helped engineer Reagan's 1984 runaway, defines a landslide as "any time you get over 300 or 320 electoral votes." He thinks Obama is on track for more than 300.
Update 2
Added Poll