Novak: No Mandate for Obama

So, everyone's favorite outer of covert operatives, Bob Novak, writes in the Chicago Sun-Times that last night's election does not give Obama a mandate. Novak writes (http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/1260688,CST-NWS-novak05.article):

[Obama] may have opened the door to enactment of the long-deferred liberal agenda, but he neither received a broad mandate from the public nor the needed large congressional majorities.

So, according to Novak, an Obama victory of more than 7 million popular votes and nearly 200 electoral votes, along with at least 56 Senate seats and an 80-seat advantage in the House is not a clear mandate.

Based on Novak's analysis of last night's election results, one could only conclude that following President Bush's 2004 election victory, in which he won by a margin of 3 million popular votes and 34 electoral votes, with 55 Senate seats and a 31-seat edge in the House, that Novak would have mocked the notion that the election provided Bush with a mandate.

From the November 6, 2004 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/06/cg.01.html) edition of CNN's The Capital Gang:

SHIELDS: Bob Novak, is 51 percent of the vote really a mandate?

BOB NOVAK, CAPITAL GANG: Of course it is. It's a 3.5 million vote margin...

...So the people who say there's not a mandate want the president, now that he's won, to say, Oh, we're going to accept the liberalism that the -- that the voters rejected. But Mark, this is a conservative country, and it showed it on last Tuesday.

So, if you concluded that intellectual honesty and integrity are meaningful to Mr. Novak, you would have concluded incorrectly, but then again, who would have ever assumed that in the first place?

Is he serious? The guy won by well over 6 million votes. This is exactly what I mean by kool-aid drinkers.

I would add that if it were up to me, every Presidential administration would simply put the most qualified in cabinet positions, not the traditional party hacks and friends of the President. I believe that JFK did this for the most part. So far Obama is looking like a conventional President if the names that are floating around are the ones he picks. So much for the "change" candidate.

However, this is the problem, when you have Bush giving jobs to loyal supporters over more qualified people, you can't be surprised if the Democrats want to say, screw everybody, we are going to put in who we want.

But if you are an outside observer and really thought that Obama was going to shake up the status quo you have to be shaking your head. Rahm Emanuel, John Kerry, these are the inspiring picks, it is going to be a long four years.

This is exactly what worries me; now the Democrats are going to play ***-for-tat and have their own fun to stick it to the Republicans.

Yes, if I ever resume blogging that would have been my first post, I think the election was closer than what the media will portray, when it is 52-46, you can't claim a landslide but I knew I heard this liar Novak say that Bush had a mandate in 2004, where did you find that, I didn't click your link, has anyone in the media picked up on his old quote.

I can remember to this day, the morning after the 2004 election, when Bush had his acceptance speech and claimed a clear mandate, yes he won a significant higher number of states than Kerry, but he basically had a 3 point overall win, and if Kerry flipped 70,000 votes in Ohio he would have been the President.

I don't remember any conservative complaining that Bush was acting as if it was a 1984 or 1988 victory, so they can't complain now if Obama acts the same way.

Here's where I got the transcript:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/06/cg.01.html

I haven't seen anyone in the media pick up on the old quote. I just saw the link to the new column on Drudge, and had a feeling he had bought into the "Bush mandate" rhetoric 4 years ago, so I did some digging and found that. I may be the only person on the planet who misses the Capital Gang. It was one of the few political shows I enjoyed.

I would add that if it were up to me, every Presidential administration would simply put the most qualified in cabinet positions, not the traditional party hacks and friends of the President. I believe that JFK did this for the most part. So far Obama is looking like a conventional President if the names that are floating around are the ones he picks. So much for the "change" candidate.

However, this is the problem, when you have Bush giving jobs to loyal supporters over more qualified people, you can't be surprised if the Democrats want to say, screw everybody, we are going to put in who we want.

But if you are an outside observer and really thought that Obama was going to shake up the status quo you have to be shaking your head. Rahm Emanuel, John Kerry, these are the inspiring picks, it is going to be a long four years.

I understand the argument about the same old people, but let's see who he ends up picking before we go nuts. As for bringing in people from outside DC, this sounds like a great idea, but Clinton tried that when he first got elected and it was an uttah disastah. They had no idea what to do, and totally screwed up the first hundred days. I don't think Obama is going to repeat that mistake.