Mandate
Who knew a single word could be so powerful? The great Mandate Debate has spawned endless discussion on the Sunday talk shows and newspaper editorials. Here’s one definition of the word:
[n] (Politics) the commission that is given to a government and its policies through an electoral victory
It appears to be simple, right?
The Washington Post notes that while Bush won more votes than any previous presidential candidate (over 59 million), second place goes to John Kerry, who took 56 million votes. This President’s policies represent the will of 51% of voters. He wins, so give the man a mandate! Here you go; take your policies and execute. The people have spoken.
But the important thought to consider is not whether the President was awarded a mandate, but how convincing that mandate actually is. How does his mandate translate to political capital?
Capital: [n] assets available for use in the production of further assets.
Bush knows that our country is sharply divided (how could you think otherwise after seeing the vote tallies?). In his victory speech, he said, "We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it." He knows he hasn’t yet earned the support from many. Yet, he later said that "Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." Tell me, what capital has he earned other than his official mandate which gives him authority to execute the will of the people? More people voted against him in 2004 than in 2000. More people dislike his policies now than they did at the start of his presidency. What has he done to reach out to mend the divide? Without mending, how has he earned capital?
He has the same capital he’s always had: Republicans like him; Democrats hate him. He’s earned nothing but the right to execute the will of the people, as mandated by the election. The will of the people is not a strong will this year; it’s defined by only 51% support. His capital is as weak as ever.
posted by The Decider @ 1:17 PM
2 Comments:
Can any president in such a narrowly divided bipartisan electorate claim the sort of political capital Bush alludes to?
One answer is yes, because in our system of government it's winner-take-all with regard to the presidency. Whether it's by 1% or 20%, it's all yours, no power-sharing, and in that sense, all the mandate you need. Have we ever expected a narrowly elected president to modify his agenda in light of that fact? No. That's one of the reasons that having two more branches of government is so crucial.
Your answer, which seems to me to have been at the heart of the public debate about this question, defines the mandate as somehow proportional to the will of the people, however that can be quantified (an interesting and complicated question in itself). It's sort of like asking, "if there's anything close to an electoral stalemate, no matter who's in office, what's the most appropriate direction for the country to head and at what speed?".
Could yet another answer be that when he said he earned political capital in the campaign, he was talking (at least partly) about congressional Republicans on whose behalf he'd campaigned? Now that many of them won their races, might he not assume that they owe the White House their legislative help in advancing his policies in the second term? I don't know if that's a plausible explanation for the quote, but I certainly think W has more claim to this type of capital than he has from the electorate.
Well said, Carl...Either way, though, I have the feeling that whatever 'capital' he has, or was referring to, it won't last long. The concept of 'mandate' this time was used to dissipate memories of 2000, where the complete lack of it was bad for business during the first few months in office. Even if this had been a 100% clean election, and with one single vote advantage, he would still claim a 'mandate'. The objective was just to be able to use that word so that recorded history shows that at some point, he had some sort of majority.
The real value of that mandate and capital will be important when it comes time to implement the first and spend the second. The debate (let's hope) that will arise about whatever issue comes up first, will rapidly offset any capital investment he makes. But you're right: most of the support will come from the rest of the government class, not from the people, and in that sense, he has pretty much all the support he needs. For a while, at least.
Maybe this could be discussed in another post, but I have a question here...We all know that at one point or another, there will be another attack like 9/11 of some sort. It could be tomorrow or 3 years down the road, but it would not be a good idea to assume that nothing is ever going to happen. One thing that I never saw discussed at length is one unchallenged aspect of the sept 11 attack. In a matter of minutes, the country changed, the world changed. The consequences are felt still today and, the way it looks, for years to come. The country, which before the attack was the uncontested leader of the world, suffered great losses, which I don't need to describe here. It's like a building that wasn't ready for an earthquake. All the government efforts seem to be directed towards preventing the next earthquake, and nothing seems to go towards recovering from it, if it happens, more rapidly and effectively than we did from this one. If it happened again, tomorrow, what would be different? What 'reconstruction' efforts are being implemented by the government to protect us from the aftermath, not just from the attack itself? Any political capital earned as a consequence of the first attack, which in a way compensated for the lack of a mandate in the 2000 election, was used into debilitating the fabric of the system, by changing the rules of the game, domestically and internationally. Even if there was nothing wrong with any of the measures taken after 9/11, even if we supported them ALL, no exception, what was done to make the aftermath of a new attack any different from the first? What better way to use any newly acquired political capital than using it to fortify our internal system, that is still severely damaged after something that happened 3 years ago? 9/11 was followed by a crisis in the economy that doesn't seem to get any better: record deficits, several industries in intensive care, amazing loss of jobs, record trade deficit, the dollar losing its magic all over the world, worldwide lack of support for our intentions and policies, etc. If 9/11 were to occur today again, it would be way too much for our country to absorb. Why is his mandate going to be used to stop gays from marrying, have a few hundred bucks in private S.S. accounts -which we'll probably lose-, and letting Arnold be president? If we're truly at war, and we're alone at it, why isn't he proposing a recovery plan for the current 9/11 crisis and the much feared next one?
As much as I agree with you and Nan regarding the true nature of this mandate, I wouldn't mind accepting whatever interpretation is given to it as long as I see that it is used wisely, and I don't see that. Of all the inconsistencies that played out in the last few years, this one really troubles me: we can't be at war with everything, and at the same time go on living as if nothing is ever going to happen. He told us to be scared, and in that sense, I am. True progress, and maybe the only way to really win this war on terror, is by making us immune to its inevitable consequences, and I haven't heard one word out of his mouth towards that. A mandate should not just be a carte blanche to do whatever he wants, but one to do what he has to do, and based on the way things evolved in the last 3 years, I'd think that it is pretty clear what it should be invested in.
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