Mandate for Man Dates?

[Ravi]

Here's the definition of landslide:

2 a: a great majority of votes for one side b: an overwhelming victory

Obama 53% of the popular vote
McCain 46% of the popular vote

I'd say it's a landslide.

 

[editec]

I think they consider the Presidential elections a landslide based on the electoral college, not the popular vote.

I agree. And the media does this crap every election, too.

The electorial college distorts (if we're dumb enough to let it) the real meaning of almost every election.

Obama won the hearts and minds of voting Americans by a very respectable, but hardly overwhelming margin.

The electoral college is designed to (among other things) pervert the significance of the peoples' vote.

Only two electorially insignificant states in America split their electoral votes, so naturally even relatively minor wins in the popular outcome can theoretically add up to huge electoral wins.

The Dems won a lot of victories, including the Oval office.

But only a damned fool thinks they were handed a mandate to run roughshod over the rather significant minority of Republicans.

I seriously doubt Obama is fool enough to think otherwise.

 

[Skull Pilot]

When you have twice the electoral votes that your opponent had then it seems that would be a but kicking but I dont know what the definition of landslide is. I would think a landslide would be if he had less than 100 electoral votes but who knows, just my opinion.

But dimocrats were up in arms that Al Bore won the popular vote yet lost the electoral vote. Now they champion the electoral vote to claim a landslide when the popular vote was a mere 53%.

You can't have it both ways.

or maybe you can if you're a dimocrat.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Here's the definition of landslide:

2 a: a great majority of votes for one side b: an overwhelming victory

Obama 53% of the popular vote
McCain 46% of the popular vote

I'd say it's a landslide.

7%? so 7% margin is a landslide?

I hardly think so. I wouldn't call 53% a "great majority" or an "overwhelming victory" You wouldn't call a basketball game that ended 100 to 93 a rout would you?

 

[Caligirl]

I think anyone who remembers the 1980 election is hard pressed to call the 2008 electoral vote a landslide.

 

[Caligirl]

THough hopefully we can all agree now that Bush did not win a mandate in 2004.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

But dimocrats were up in arms that Al Bore won the popular vote yet lost the electoral vote. Now they champion the electoral vote to claim a landslide when the popular vote was a mere 53%.

You can't have it both ways.

or maybe you can if you're a dimocrat.

Actually there was controversy around the 2000 election, and it was the Supreme Court who appointed the President and Al Gore didn't demand a recount.

And we don't champion the electoral vote as a landslide. We just accept that, unlike Bush in 2000, Obama got both the EC and the popular vote.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Actually there was controversy around the 2000 election, and it was the Supreme Court who appointed the President and Al Gore didn't demand a recount.

And we don't champion the electoral vote as a landslide. We just accept that, unlike Bush in 2000, Obama got both the EC and the popular vote.

OK so getting the popular vote and the EC is a landslide?

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Obama will have more, a lot more, than twice as many Electoral College votes as his opponent. He may end up with 364, and counting, Electoral College votes

He will have beaten McCain in the popular vote by more than 7 million votes.

He won more white voters than Clinton, Kerry, or Gore.

He won almost all of the biggest states in the country

He won in traditional republican safe havens

He swept the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio Florida and Virginia, and turned what was suppossed to be battleground states like Michigan into easy wins

He won 9 more states that were won by Bush in 2004 (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, AND North Carolina .. a major blow to republicans)

He won some of the largest states by HUGE margins .. he beat McCain 62 to 37% in New York, 61 to 38% in Illinois, 61 to 37% in California.

He's led the Democratic Party to complete control of government

He won every state that was won by Kerry in 2004, including the whole of the New England region, the industrial Great Lakes region, and the Pacific coastal states.

No Republican candidate ever gets to 270 Electoral College votes without sweeping the South, including Virginia, and winning at least two out of the three battleground states of Pennsyvania, Florida, and Ohio .. and McCain lost all four.

The semantics of whatever one calls this is meaningless. What this was is a DECISIVE victory and a crushing defeat of the Republican Party.

You can call it whatever you want.

 

[Navy1960]

I submit that the difference between a landslide and a victory nothing exept to those that seek to benefit from it. The outcome in the end is still the same, the victor in the election was Barack Obama that much was very clear. Those that claim a mandate only do so to justify policy decisions that may not go over so well with the 50 plus million that didn't vote for Barack Obama. The media's job , at least modern media before they lost the ability to be unbiased is to sway public opinion to help enforce those policy decisions. While by any measure President-Elect Obama's victory in the EC would be considered a landslide, the little mention of EC at times is left off the end of the sentence when todays media reports on that victory. In the end though, one vote, or 500 votes if your on the positive side of that your the victor no matter how it's being spun.

 

[Skull Pilot]

This was just a little exercise in the neutrality of the press.

the media should never use qualifying terms.

landslide victory
crushing defeat
catastrophic losses.

What is wrong with simply saying:

"Obama won 53% of the popular vote to win the presidential election" Instead of "Obama won 53% in a landslide vote giving the Democrats an undeniable mandate" ?

Or

"The Dow Closed at 872 today" Instead of "After another dismal day on Wall Street stockholders took another merciless beating as the Dow closed at 872" ?

Do you not see the bias the statements with qualifiers represent?
Using neutral statements to convey factual accounts of events is reporting all the rest is opinion and we all know opinions are like assholes eveyone has at least one.

 

[Ravi]

This was just a little exercise in the neutrality of the press.

For your enjoyment, here's a nice list of this same press insisting Bush had a mandate.

Media Matters - Media echoed conservative claim on Bush "mandate"

You make yourself look dimmer with each post.

 

[Skull Pilot]

For your enjoyment, here's a nice list of this same press insisting Bush had a mandate.

Media Matters - Media echoed conservative claim on Bush "mandate"

You make yourself look dimmer with each post.

And thank you for agreeing with me.

Why do you think i am a fan of GW?

Let's see I've called him a high functioning moron and you take that as a show of support.

At least you see the bias in the media even if you have no idea of what you're talking about when you imply I have ever supported GW

 

[bk1983]

This was just a little exercise in the neutrality of the press.

the media should never use qualifying terms.

landslide victory
crushing defeat
catastrophic losses.

What is wrong with simply saying:

"Obama won 53% of the popular vote to win the presidential election" Instead of "Obama won 53% in a landslide vote giving the Democrats an undeniable mandate" ?

Or

"The Dow Closed at 872 today" Instead of "After another dismal day on Wall Street stockholders took another merciless beating as the Dow closed at 872" ?

Do you not see the bias the statements with qualifiers represent?
Using neutral statements to convey factual accounts of events is reporting all the rest is opinion and we all know opinions are like assholes eveyone has at least one.

It is called headlines to grab attention. At the end of the day news media is intersted in sales. Neutral statements are boring, they are trying to make money not be fair and balanced.

 

[CrimsonWhite]

Here's the definition of landslide:

2 a: a great majority of votes for one side b: an overwhelming victory

Obama 53% of the popular vote
McCain 46% of the popular vote

I'd say it's a landslide.

Then you would be wrong.

 

[Red Dawn]

What's the difference between a "landslide" victory and a "narrow" defeat? Let's check the media math.

When Barack Obama gets 52% of the vote, it's a "landslide!:"
es.

Bitter, Bitter, Bitter.

First, Obama won by 7%, virtually the same margin as Poppy Bush beat Dukkakis by, and that was a blow out.

Ronald Reagan only won 50% of the popular vote.

Hey dude, this is what a mandate looks like:


Barack Obama 360 electoral votes

House of Reps: Dems ~ 260 seats, GOP ~175

Senate: Dems 58 GOP 42

Governors: Dems 29 GOP 21.


The country has spoken, chap.

Libs told you not to spend the last eight years nominating, voting for, cheerleading, and defending the worst president in American history. You should have listened.

I can't help you now. I warned you 8 years ago not to tie your reputation to a failed oil man from Texas. You and your party were held accountable for your failures. Too bad you wouldn't listen to libs 8 years ago.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Bitter, Bitter, Bitter.

First, Obama won by 7%, virtually the same margin as Poppy Bush beat Dukkakis by, and that was a blow out.

Ronald Reagan only won 50% of the popular vote.

Hey dude, this is what a mandate looks like:


Barack Obama 360 electoral votes

House of Reps: Dems ~ 260 seats, GOP ~175

Senate: Dems 58 GOP 42

Governors: Dems 29 GOP 21.


The country has spoken, chap.

Libs told you not to spend the last eight years nominating, voting for, cheerleading, and defending the worst president in American history. You should have listened.

I can't help you now. I warned you 8 years ago not to tie your reputation to a failed oil man from Texas. You and your party were held accountable for your failures. Too bad you wouldn't listen to libs 8 years ago.

you don't understand the thread, Red