It strikes me that the moves Barack Obama is making in naming his cabinet and reversing many campaign promises (see Change entries 1-8 below) are the moves of a President and a party that wants to stay in power for 8 years, not 4. Obama did not win a mandate. 53% to 47% is not a mandate, 60% to 40% or better, would have been. Many would argue with the media providing cover, with Republicans in disfavor, and with the gift of a collapsed economy just before the election - any democrat would have won with a margin of 15% by just getting out of bed!
Sorry Huff Po-ites, Kos Kids and MoveOn folks - though you may have provided the margin of victory for Barry, he's going to leave you behind. Change We Need, Change We Can Believe In, was all smoke and mirrors. Puppeteer Rahm is in charge now and the Democrat mega powers funded by big business don't want to rock the boat. Middle class, schmiddle class - about all the lefties might get is a center left Supreme Court justice, a $1.50 minimum wage increase, and modified immigration amnesty.
Pretty close to what McCain would have been all about, or for that matter - a third Bush term.
3 comments:
Sorry to be nit-picking, but was the final percentage result 53 to 46, as reported by CNN -- http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/ -- or did they round down on McCain? Anyway, shouldn't we give credit to Obama in winning the real contest (the electoral college) by a landslide? After all, when Bush beat Gore, despite losing the popular vote, we said, sorry, but that's not the "real" contest. So, Obama's electoral college landslide is a mandate in that sense.
Clarification of my last comment -- "After all, when Bush beat Gore, despite losing the popular vote, we said, sorry, but that's not the "real" contest"...meaning that the popular vote is not the real contest
No doubt Obama won big in the electoral college, meaning he won the political part of the contest widely. But the 46 or 47% of people who did not vote for him given all the issues working in his favor, suggests that he still needs to win over nearly half of the electorate. Moderate appointments are intended to help him do that I think.
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