I'm still digesting yesterday's general election. A full post-mortem will come tomorrow, but I do have some additional reflections:
1) According to FOX News as of 4:15 PM ET, Barack Obama has been credited with 63,562,802 popular votes. That is only 1,522,192 votes greater than the 62,040,610 popular votes President Bush amassed in 2004 - just a 2.45 percent increase for the winner. John McCain received 59,028,044 popular votes; this is a loss of 3,012,166/4.9% from Bush '04, but 2,832,022 votes more than John Kerry received in 2004 (a gain of 5% for the loser). Votes from last night are still being counted and canvassed, but clearly the electorate is still deeply divided, and there is hope in the numbers for our side in the future.
2) I wish our new President-elect well and my prayers will be for him and our Nation. I want the United States of America to be prosperous and successful. Now that the campaign is over, I will be dropping my partisan rhetoric of naming Senator Obama the "New Soviet Man" and hope he is sincere when he said last night, "And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too." I have very, very grave doubts that Barack Obama will do anything though than govern from the far left.
3) Jason Altmire will be continuing as the Congressman from my district in Western Pennsylvania. The first occasion I had to be spurred to contact him on an issue was on the financial system bailout. I expressed my opinion as a constituent repeatedly to Mr. Altmire that the bailout was a raw deal, and on the force of my and other constituents' input, he did vote against the bill. I'm not going to let Mr. Altmire off the hook during the 111th Congress. He's going to be hearing from me regularly.
4) I could have done more in the way of volunteering to support the McCain/Palin campaign and other Republican candidates. I should have done more. We need to renew the Conservative movement, and I fully expect there's going to be an ideological war within the Republican Party. I'm not going to stand on the sidelines until 2010, 2012, or beyond. My involvement in the grass roots to shape the future of Conservatism starts today.
Today is a bright day in the "Shining City on a Hill" that is the United States of America. I am as positive about and convinced of the correctness of the Conservative beliefs and principles I cherish today as yesterday. As Sean Hannity says, "Let not your heart be troubled."
And I won't.
(UPDATE 11/6: Corrected some of my numbers and math in point (1) - couldn't read my own quick chicken scratch where I didn't label columns)
Your attempt to paint Obama's win as being close is a joke. It was Bush who declared a mandate in 2000 after losing the popular vote and manipulating a "victory". Obama won without the help of a brother governor and a court decision. Now that's a mandate.
ReplyDeleteIn case you haven't noticed this country is quickly lurching left. Over eight long, disasterous years one thing is for sure - neocons cannot govern.
President Bush never claimed a mandate in 2000; he did in 2004 saying, "I have earned political capital, and I intend to spend it."
ReplyDeleteHe then, proceeded to squander his entire Presidency by not leading.
Under the vote totals I cited yesterday, Barack Obama's margin of victory was 4.5 million votes vs. Bush's margin over Kerry of 5.8 million - a drop of 22.4% in margin.
This doesn't qualify as a landslide on popular vote margin of victory. Witness:
1972: Nixon +23.2%
1976: Carter +2.1%
1980: Reagan +9.7%
1984: Reagan +18.2%
1988: Bush +7.8%
Bill Clinton was not elected by a majority of the popular vote in either 1992 or 1996.
When the final tallies are analyzed, and coupled with exit polling data, the end result will be that 2008 was a referendum on the Bush 43 Administration and not a groundswell for Barack Obama, except for the 3.7% increase in total electorate size that broke largely for him.
Thank you for your comment.