opinion
OBAMA’S PRESIDENTIAL MANDATE by Colin Spence
9
Associate Editor
On November 6th, Barack Obama won reelection to the Presidency. This fact had only just been established when commentators from both sides began attempting to assess what had happened in the election, and what the results meant going forward for the President and his agenda. In the midst of all the argument that would erupt around this topic, one fact became quite clear. The President may have secured the White House, but he failed to secure a clear mandate for himself. This lack of mandate stems from the fact that the election results were nearly static. There were some small changes, but the overall makeup of Washington has remained in stasis. The left continues to hold the Presidency and the Senate, while the right continues to hold the House. The American people, it seems, did not buy wholly into either party’s vision, electing instead to send them back to Washington roughly as is. This result springs from the majority of Americans thinking that the economy is in weak shape, but splitting on whether Romney or Obama was the appropriate person to fix it, according to NBC exit polling. What gave Obama his edge, while simultaneously explaining the congressional results, is the fact that voters preferred Mr. Obama on a personal level by a substantial margin. This highlights a central theme of the election, the lack of clarity of vision from both campaigns. This opacity was especially important when compared to the campaign that Obama ran in 2008. In that campaign, Mr. Obama offered a unified vision and ideology for his party going forward, and the American people responded by not only giving him the White House, but also both houses of Congress. The fact that this coattail effect was not repeated in 2012 is telling. It reveals that Obama’s campaign for reelection centered more upon attacking his opponent than creating a unified strategy for his party. This strategy, while successful in aiding Obama in his attempt to retake the White House, did not translate well into congressional races. While the manner in which Mr. Obama retook the White House might seem like a moot point, the election results do say a significant amount about why Americans reelected him, and what they want him to do going forward. In essence, the American people gave the victory to Mr. Obama because he and his campaign portrayed Mr. Romney as the wrong candidate for America going forward. What he did not truly do, and what subsequently limits his mandate to accomplish things in his second term, was portray himself as the right candidate for the country. This strategy got him the White House, but did not win his agenda the affirmation, either tacit or explicit, of the
American people. In fact, the voting results point to a more nuanced decision by the American people. They first agreed with the president and rejected Mr. Romney’s bid. However, they then forced the president back towards the center and towards compromise by denying him the congressional majorities that would have let him pursue the more ambitious aspects of his agenda more easily. This division of power means that the President will not be able to just wax eloquent on the idea of compromise
This lack of mandate stems from the fact that the election results were nearly static. There were some small changes, bu the overall makeup of Washington has remained in stasis.
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while forcing through bills on strictly partisan lines, as he did in his first term. The fact that the Republicans still control the House means that either the people rejected the president’s argument that the House was needlessly obstructing his agenda for cynically partisan reasons, or they want the House to act as an impediment to some of the president’s more ambitious policy proposals. Either way, the order of the day will be compromise. The Republicans came away chastened by the presidential loss, but not entirely defeated. So while they will be willing to compromise up to a point, it will be the president’s responsibility to work with his legislative counterparts to produce common-sense policies that both sides can stomach. This means that the president and the legislature will have to set aside their more radical ideas and address some of the more
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