Talk Elections

While many in the media continue worshiping Obama, proclaiming him the winner in a "landslide," it seems to me a little perspective is needed.

First of the Presidential elections in the last thirty six years (a cycle) by Electoral College Votes, Obama trails Reagan (84), Nixon (72), Reagan (80), Bush (88) Clinton (96) and Clinton (92), coming in seventh of ten elections.

Second, when we look are the margin of victory, he trails Nixon (72), Reagan (84), Reagan (80), Clinton (96) and Bush (88), coming in sixth of the ten elections over the past 36 years.

Winning 68% of the electoral college sounds like a landslide to me.

It's all perspective. Your perspective is comparing it to other larger blowouts. Also, consider the fact that Clinton was aided by third party candidates. For me, anything over 60% sounds like a landslide. Yet if you look at the popular vote, it is not as big. It all depends on what you are looking at.

RE: Clinton popular vote.

Obama is likely to surpass Clinton's popular vote margin (96') at 8.2 million.

Obama is now leading McCain by over 8.2 million votes (this is without Cali 2+ million votes outstanding)

Get used to it. Everyone Obama does will be hailed as historic. It's historic that he's using executive orders. It's historic that he went to the White House. Everything he does will be hailed as historic for a while, perhaps for the duration of this first term.

Using absolute numbers is just stupid. That biases in favour of later-day candidacies.

Also, the comparison is not to "even larger landslides" it's to recent elections, of which many were landslides. Which seems to be exactly Carl's point.

The counter-argument I would offer is rather that the landslides of the past occurred largely in a different political climate of Southern dealignment when such occurences happened more easily. Even then though this isn't really historical. It's an impressive win but it's not mind-blowing if you just look at the numbers. And if we are to take the specifics of the situation into the equation it tends to cut both ways (racial issues, economy, etc).

After many Bush supporters went on and on about a mandate in 04. We have every right to talk about a landslide.

That I do agree with.  I never understood this whole "mandate" thing 4 years ago other than the fact that the GOP was vindicated against the Kerry campaign claims.

Above. Perhaps only for two years though. The media will get bored.

And, this was not a landslide. This was a healthy victory.

Obama has his mandate, though, so let's see where it goes. Someone is going to be ticked. He will either be as radical as I fear, and utterly turn off 55-60% of the population, or a centrist, and utterly disgust his base and the blogosphere.

Landslides are not important.  (And no, this was not a landslide.)  The question is, did the winning candidate receive a mandate?  Did he gain political capital that he intends to spend?

Barack Obama did not receive a mandate or gain political capital.  A good example of this would be the 2000 and 2004 elections -- in both of which -- the victor received a mandate for change and a tremendous amount of political capital.

You guys have to learn.  When a Democrat wins, even by a substantial margin, he is supposed to govern from the center-right.  Anything else is arrogant hubris.  Even "uppity".

When a Republican wins, even by the thinnest of PV and EV margins, he has a mandate and enough political capital to demand whatever he wants from Congress.  This is not arrogant hubris.  It is patriotism.  And if you question it, you must hate Jesus, America, the troops, little babies and all things good and decent.

Happy to clear it up.

Everything in this cycle has been called that, actually. There was an article posted here calling Ron Paul's sour-grapes party in Minneapolis "historical".

An electoral vote landslide, but not a popular vote one.  Even 1980 was not referred as a landslide in some quarters.

As to the mandate, 2010 and 2012 will express how much of a mandate there was.

I'd call it a very comfortable victory, not a landslide. I'm not even sure if I'd call Clinton '96 or Bush '88 landslides.

Johnson '64, Nixon '72, Reagan '84... now those are REAL landslides... if we are only to concern ourselves with the Presidential level anyway.

I would consider 364 electoral votes in todays america a mini -landslide.

Bush had all the "moral" backing and ideals in 2000 and 2004, but only was able ink out a small win ( 2000 he didn't even win), kinda sad considering this is supposed to be a "center- right" country.

Anything over 350Ev for a democrat is a landslide in my book.

You think Democrats should get their own special land-slide definition because they have such a hard time?

I do not agree. :P

Yes, in this current climate.

 I could see Obama winning 450EVs over someone like Palin, however Obama would have to have ratings in the 55-60% range or so.

No, this election was not a landslide, nor were either of Bill Clinton's two elections, nor was Bush 88, at least in terms of the popular vote. It's not that hard for a narrow popular vote margin to become a landslide in the electoral college.

However, 2012 could be a landslide if Obama has at least a moderately successful presidency and the Republicans nominate somebody like Palin or Jindal.

I agree with J.J. I was not arguing for this election to be considered a landslide. However, everyone has a different perspective of how to consider the results. If you look at the electoral college results, it is an electoral college landslide. You cannot argue otherwise. If you look at the popular vote, it is NOT a landslide. When you look at all the factors, I don't consider the results to be a landslide but a very impressive win. Thus, there are a lot of factors to consider, electoral college results, popular vote, absolute vote margin, the context of the election, relative results to other elections. In the end, I think this was not a landslide but it was a very impressive for Obama. I, for one, did not expect these results.

Obama winning Indiana? Never thought that would happen. You can only get that with an impressive win.

To see the first ever black candidate win 364 Ev and 52% in my book is  "mini" - Landslide.

When you consider all the factors for this election.

Only 3 Democrats have gotten a higher percentage of the popular vote than Obama. One of those is Andrew Jackson, from before the Republican party existed. FDR and LBJ are the other two. Obama has the all-time record for a Democrat running in an open election. So, yeah, I can play with statistics, too.

Updated!

So Obama must have won NE-3?

53% of the vote is pretty damn good for the first ever black candidate.

There is no affirmative action in the electoral college.