bush; LOWEST % of the popular vote since TRUMAN! LOL!!!

[LynnTheDem]

He will have won with the lowest percentage of the popular vote (51%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman.

Some "BROAD NATIONWIDE VICTORY"! Yeah, CELEBRATE, rightwingnuts, I mean TRUMAN wasn't THAT long ago. LOL!!!

[sonicx]

1. what about clinton?

[theboss]

2. Lowest winning percentage in a two-man race

Obviously, Carter and his dad did worse. And Clinton got 49.2 percent of the vote.

[nlik]

3. Hate to rain on your parade but...

Clinton didnt even get to 50% of the popular vote in either of his two elections. (45% and 49% I think)

[Mick Knox]

4. Why are these threads popping up

Everywhere with bogus statistics.

Planted IMO.

[dolstein]

5. Excuse me, but Bush got the HIGHEST % since 1988

He got more than his dad got in 1992, and more than Clinton got in 1996.

[Julien Sorel]

6. The media are playing ball so far.

Calling it a "mandate" and stressing the fact that he got a majority of the votes for the first time since his father won in 1988. Of course, what they don't talk about is that Perot ran in 1992 and 1996, which denied Clinton an outright majority. But what the hell. Got to go along to get along.

The article I read on MSNBC is using Republican terminology as well: "Social Security reform" instead of "privatization;" "tax reform" to describe what will almost certainly be a further tax reduction for the rich, and so on.


The media were finally waking up some at the end of the campaign and doing their fucking jobs; now I'm wondering if they will go right back in the tank for Bush, as they did after 2000 and especially, after 9/11. They certainly are a fickle and cowardly enough lot.

One thing is clear: Democrats must fight the notion that the monkey won some kind of broad mandate, because he didn't. He eked out a win with the help of evangelical Christians who were only interested in one or two issues; that doesn't give the lipless wonder cart blanche to fuck up both Social Security and the tax code to the same extent that he's already fucked up foreign policy and the budget.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. "the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916."

says my e-mail from MoveOn.og, per the WSJ today.

[LaPera]

9. That is correct!

[barb162]

8. and he talks like he's got a giant mandate