Mandate Madness.

JS Online: Mandate or split decision?:

In a post-election breakfast with reporters Friday, the first words out of Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman were: 'The president won a mandate and a historic victory.'"

Speaking the same morning, Kerry pollster Stan Greenberg rejected the notion of a ringing public endorsement of the Bush agenda, saying, "The country was not looking for a conservative president and a conservative regime."

After every election, the winners and losers have to decide how much to read into it.

President Bush is claiming a mandate.

Democrats disagree.

All this blabber about whether Bush won a "mandate" or not is beginning to annoy me. Has anyone considered, before we determine whether or not there's a mandate, that we should define exactly what makes a mandate?

Just how much of the vote does a candidate have to get, to have a mandate? More than half isn't enough, obviously, so what is it? 55%? More? How many electoral votes? 300? 400?

Nobody knows, because there's no such thing as a mandate. It's just another mirage that keeps the talking heads talking.

You know what defines a mandate? What you accomplish. We didn't know what Bush's mandate was in 2000, but today we do. We don't know what Bush's mandate for the next four years is. Four years from now, we will.

Bush won the election. He will pursue his agenda. Republicans won larger majorities in Congress. They will pursue their agenda. The minority party will oppose that agenda. This would be the case regardless of which party was in power, and by how much.

Consider: if Bush had won 1984-Reagan numbers, would the Democrats have just sit down and shut up, and let him have his way?

Did they, in 1985?

Nope. Nor should they have. Nor should they today.

Bush will accomplish everything he can, with the cards he has been dealt. That's all the mandate anyone ever gets.