More historical perspective on the Presidential elections, voter turnout, and Obama's mandate. Sexy, sexy numbers. Mmmmmmm...
In 1960, John F. Kennedy won the closest (in the Popular vote) election since 1888, receiving 34,226,731 votes, edging Richard Nixon's 34,108,157 by a mere 118,574. This was enough to net Kennedy 303 Electoral votes, 84 more than Nixon (15 Electoral votes went to segregationist Senator Harry F Byrd, despite his not being a candidate).
Other historical notes from the 1960 elections:
- It was highly contested and widely believed to be fraudulent, with Kennedy being seen as the beneficiary of voter fraud.
- Nixon pursued his own 50-state strategy, but without the support structure enjoyed by Barack Obama in 2008, he stretched his resources without much benefit.
- It was also the first election Obama's birth state of Hawaii and Sarah Palin's current home state of Alaska were participants in the national elections.
- It was widely believed that Dwight Eisenhower, had the 22nd Amendment not passed in 1951, would have defeated Kennedy handily.
- The Kennedy-Nixon debates were the first to be aired on television; the majority of those who watched the first debate believed Kennedy had won, while those who listened to it on the radio believed Nixon won.
- Nixon was the first presidential candidate to win a majority of the states (26), yet lose the election.
What to take away from this shotgun spray of factoids? The total Popular vote for presidential candidates in 1960 was 68,334,888. Barack Obama alone has surpassed this total. In fact, it is considered likely that he will top the total of 1964's 70,307,672 votes, as well.
As most of us know, the biggest Electoral thrashing since 1936 (and second biggest overall) was Ronald Reagan's 525 to Walter Mondale's 13 in 1984. From 1984 to 1996, in fact, the winning candidates won by over 200 Electoral votes in each election. However, none since Reagan's 16.8 million Popular vote drubbing of Mondale (Little wonder why the Republicans worship the myth of the Great Communicator) were as wide a margin as 2008 (Again, in the popular vote). You would need to go back to 1972 to again find a wider margin.
In the year 2000 (hello, Conan O'Brien fans), His Imperial Shrubbiness "won" one of the most problematic elections since 1960. I'm sure the details are fresh in enough minds here that there's no need to go into details, but - again, to put things in perspective - Green Party candidate and altruistic, selfless picture of humility Ralph Nader received 2,882,955 Popular votes. Nader is widely believed to have contributed to the Bush/Cheney 2000 team's ability to steal the rest of the election victory, and he is often thought of as a spoiler. In the year 2008, Barack Obama could have been saddled with three Ralph Naders and still won both the Popular vote and the Electoral vote.
I know this scattershot heap of trivia and statistics might seem random and pointless, but I assure you, it's only random. Here's my point: In 2004, Bush "won" a second term, with a 3 million Popular and 35 Electoral vote "mandate". At least, that's what they called it. To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, that's not a mandate. This is a mandate: 9.2 million Popular votes (7+ % and growing), and 192 Electoral votes.
Mandate. Kiss our big, bright, shiny mandate. Neener, neener.