This is what a mandate looks like.

http://www.presidentelect.org/e1936.html

Edit just to say that in the good old days we were red.

51% is hardly a mandate

Didn't Mondale just win Minnesota & DC? Just saying...

electorate actually voted and of that the popular vote, even in these cases its hard to talk about a "landslide" or a mandate. The electoral college makes a small difference look like a big difference w/ winner take all.

If you look at the two maps, you'll see that the colors are switched, this happened sometimes during the eighties.
Today the Republican color is red, like in revolution - very fitting for the un-conservative conservatives.

How did the change come about?

All the REDS and BLUES are backwards!

Has anyone asked the networks. I've always thought we should have the red.

because the wingnuts would harp on us having red, since being 'red' is another term for 'commie'. It would be just one more thing they would slander us with. :argh:

I think somewhere along the line it symbolized the blood that was spilled fighting for fairness and equality. If the wingnuts are against these things so be it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red

In maps of political parties, red is traditionally used for the following parties:
Australia: Labor
Canada: Liberal Party of Canada
Germany: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic party of Germany) and Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (Party of Democratic Socialism)
The Netherlands: Partij van de Arbeid (Socialist party)
United Kingdom: Labour Party
United States: Republican Party

But then again, as bad as old Red-Ink Reagan was, I'd take him over Bush in a heartbeat.

Just to make up for 1984 I think there needs to be another map showing a real Mandate.



;)

popular vote, FDR and LBJ both hit 60.6 (as well as being so well known you could refer to them by their initials), Nixon seems to be the only Republican to break 60%, (in '72) and we saw how well that went.

Bush claims this is a mandate and that he has "earned political capital" that he intends to spend. But *screech* lets not forget that after LBJ's real mandate he decided to step into another war to "protect America's security" -- and after that we know what happened. I don't think Bush is as humble as LBJ, nor does his crew recognize anything they can't destroy. But one of the reasons Nixon won was because of his promise of a "secret plan" to end the war. Unfortunately Iraq is going to get worse for everyone (except bin Laden who will use this as political capital for his extremism and Hailburton who will make $$$ of it). And since the Republicans have a desire to control everything they will only have themselves to blame -- no matter how hard they try to blame this inevitable failure on everyone else. Iraq can be salvaged, but they're too blind to change their ways and do just that.

problem with Bush claiming he has a mandate. I have a problem with the press not laughing right in his face. The only thing he ran on was attacking Kerry. He didn't run on anything he will try to do because he knows poisoning the air and water wouldn't be really popular.

about an hour and a half after the polls closed on the LEFT coast.

Where the F did that come from?

But really though this isn't surprising. They are pretty lame, and I do have a problem with Bush claiming it. The reason why is because the media is so lame -- but the Democrats need to insist that the country is still largely divided. If they don't then....sigh.

:toast:

Thanks -- Cheers.

If you count non-voters as those dissatisfied with the choices, none of the above wins every time - even in 2004.

Who knows if they don't like the choices or not? Maybe they had something better to do than vote that day. At any rate, if they don't vote, they don't count.

But then Watergate exploded.

That should be a bumber sticker!

The public wasn't as supportive as it appeared in the 1936 election and Democrats suffered heavy losses in the 1938 midterms.