If there was one refrain from the Democratic hymnal that was sung over and over after Election 2000, it was that Gore’s popular vote majority had denied Bush a “mandate.”
Now the numbers have changed, but the song remains the same. Even the moderate Dems of the DLC are singing it:
We do not accept the idea that the results represent some sort of huge policy mandate for the President, even if he had a policy agenda to advance. This is still very much a 50-50 nation.
As I mentioned here yesterday, UPI reported that the Republicans won 53% of all votes cast on Tuesday, and the Democrats 47%. Today the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate reports that a total of 78.7 million votes were cast. If both reports are true, Republicans nationwide outpolled Democrats by 41.7 million to 37 million, or over 4.5 million votes.
This is a far cry from the “50-50 nation” that still lives in the dreams of both the left and right wings of the Dems, Terry McAuliffe and the DLC. Nevertheless, I suspect the DLC may not be far off the mark in arguing that these numbers do not reflect “some sort of huge policy mandate for the President.” But what I do think they represent is a rejection of the Democrats — not so much their policies, perhaps, but they themselves as a party.
Everyone talked about the Democrats’ anger after the 2000 election, but I think there was also a largely unnoticed anger that began with Jeffords’ defection and that was fueled by such ostensibly unrelated events as the Democrats kowtowing to the unions over Homeland Security, blocking Bush’s judicial appointments, playing politics with war (trying to figure out what “stance” on Iraq, i.e., on sending men and women into battle, would poll better), complaining about the economy while not offering any alternatives, playing musical candidates in New Jersey, and turning the Wellstone memorial service into a verbal riot of partisanship.
In short, this election probably was not an endorsement of every play in the Republican play book, but I think it was a thorough and conscious rejection of how the Democrats have been playing the game.
Note that, according to Michael Barone, Republicans got more votes for Congress than Democrats did in 1998 and in 2000 as well. So this would be at least the third election in a row where Democrats have lost the popular vote in congress–although in 1998 and 2000, they picked up a few seats anyway. This year they lost a few. [shrug] The popular vote doesn’t determine much of anything, it’s how well you do in each district or state that matters.
I think the national popular vote does determine something, just not exactly how many House/Senate members each party gets (or, sometimes, who is elected president). The composite party votes for governor/Senate/House is probably a much better indicator of the relative popularity of the parties, for example, than is the vote for president, which can be and often is heavily affected by personality issues.
Can’t say I disagree.
However: last I heard, the final margins as they stand today give 205 seats to Democrats.
Run the numbers and look what you get: 205 = 47% of 435.
Impressive testament to the system, eh?
Dean
Correction. It’s 206 seats for Democrats.
Which still comes out to 47%! (47.4 if you want it rounded to two digits.)
i thought the 53-47 breakdown was of the total Repub + Dem vote, not the total vote of ALL parties. i don’t know how much it would change the numbers, but there are enough states with greens and other independents that it might shift 1% point here or there.
Yes, that’s an interesting question. But I’m not sure it would make much difference. The Greens are big some places, but virtually nonexistant elsewhere. Then you’ve got the Libertarians and the U.S. Constitution vs. the Natural Law vs. the few remaining Marxists/Socialists/Whatevers.
I suspect that they’d balance each other out if you forced them to vote Democrat or Republican.