dazzleman
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Posts: 13,777
Political Matrix
E: 1.88, S: 1.59
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« on: November 07, 2004, 07:19:52 PM » |
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A mandate is not an either/or thing.
Practically speaking, every president has a mandate to do what he can get Congress to approve. Nothing more, nothing less.
If Congress balks, and strong public opinion is behind the president on a certain issue, then the president can appeal to the public to put pressure on their representatives to vote for the measure that the president is proposing.
If a president overreaches his mandate, he'll find out soon enough. President Clinton's first term is a good example of this. He was elected with a 43% plurality, and he pushed his health care agenda as well as a tax increase, rather than the middle class tax cut he campaigned on. Although he surely had no mandate for a tax increase, Congress approved it, but they shot him down on health care, which was something he did campaign on.
Therefore, it makes no sense to argue about whether or not Bush has a mandate. Besides, I would bet that a lot of people who now say Bush doesn't have a mandate thought Clinton got one in 1992, with his 43% of the vote. Let's just see what he can get through Congress, where Republicans don't have full control.
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