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Go Home Yes, Obama Won a Mandate

PLANK NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Yes, Obama Won a Mandate

BY JONATHAN COHN

Four more years. Four more years. Four more years … of what?

That’s pretty much the way the political conversation went Tuesday night, at least based on what I saw on television. Just minutes after the networks declared President Obama the winner, and while Karl Rove was still ranting to Fox colleagues about Mitt Romney's Ohio numbers, pundits were already starting a debate over whether the election gave Obama a mandate—and, if so, what that mandate entailed.

It’s a reasonable and important question. But before we get to it, let’s not forget that the significance of this election is as much about the past as the future. And that shouldn't diminish it.

Romney and the Republicans had turned the election into a referendum on liberalism—not just the liberalism of Obama, but also the liberalism of Johnson and Kennedy, of Truman and Roosevelt. They proposed massive, fundamental changes to the welfare state and wholesale rollbacks of women’s rights, and challenged the philosophy behind such policies—the whole idea that governments should act to protect vulnerable groups and to guarantee economic security.

It was a huge gambit. And it failed. But conservatives aren’t going to drop their agenda. Come January, Paul Ryan will be back in the House of Representatives, running the budget committee, and he’ll find plenty of allies on and off Capitol Hill. But proposals to make Medicare a voucher program, to decimate Medicaid and food stamps, to reduce federal spending by unprecedented increments—those proposals have almost no chance of becoming law, at least in the forseeable future.

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And the most recent addition to the welfare state, the signature accomplishment of Obama’s term, isn’t going anywhere, either. I’ve waited more than two years to write this sentence: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. It survived the Supreme Court and now it has survived the threat of a unified Republican government determined to repeal it. Implementation of the law will present huge challenges, but, for the first time in a long while, the administration and its allies can focus on those challenges rather than on rearguard political fights to keep the program alive.

The political focus on these programs over the last few months led many observers to say the campaign was “small.” I think these observers have forgotten how much these programs have meant—and will mean—to most Americans. For those who get sick, or lose their jobs, or use public schools, or have disabilities, or need college loans—for all of them, Obama’s victory means peace of mind.

The election also sent a big, powerful message about what it means to be an American. The election of an African-American to the nation’s highest office is old news by now, but it remains remarkable, particularly given the feverish, relentless efforts by conservatives to paint Obama as un-American. And the same goes for Obama’s political coalition. Lazy pundits have fallen into the habit of dismissing Obama’s constituency because it cedes white voters, particularly white men, to Republicans. But Obama’s disproportionately female, disproportionately minority coalition happens to be majority. And it's getting better. They are no longer the "other." They are the authentic face of America.

But what about the next four years? Doesn’t Obama still need a governing plan? Sure. And if Obama has been relatively silent lately on some urgent issues—chief among them, climate change—he’s been quite clear when it comes to economic policy. He’s produced plans for strengthening the recovery. He’s laid out principles for reducing the deficit: Relatively modest reductions in spending coupled with higher taxes on the wealthy. And with the coming debate over the spending sequester and expiration of the Bush tax cuts, both set for January 2013, Obama will get a chance to apply those principles.

The stakes in this fight are large: Depending on the terms, they will define the scope of the federal government for at least a generation to come. And, unlike in recent fiscal debates, Obama should have leverage—more, perhaps, than at any time since the earliest days of his presidency. He can hold out in the debate over the sequester and Bush tax cuts, because the default action—doing nothing—is far worse for Republicans than it is for him. And with the newly elected Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren joining the reelected Sherrod Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse in the Senate, Obama should have a more unified and incrementally more liberal congressional party behind him. (Hopefully they will push Obama, even as they get his back.)

How this plays out depends a great deal on the Republicans, of course. At least since early 2010, after the bruising fight over health care, Obama has been predicting that the Republicans would not become a responsible governing party until they experienced the consequences of extremism. Now that has happened. Republicans effectively ceded winnable Senate seats by nominating far-right candidates. And they lost a potentially winnable presidential election by nominating a candidate who ran on the Paul Ryan budget and even named Ryan as his running mate.

Maybe some moderates will react to Tuesday’s GOP debacle by breaking with the Tea Party, and reaching out to Obama. Or maybe they will be too scared of reprisals from the right wing, as they have ever since Obama took office. I have no idea. But, whatever happens over the next four years, Obama’s reelection guarantees that the laws passed during his first term stay on the books. That instantly makes him one of the most accomplished presidents of modern times. Already Obama and his allies have shaped this country in ways that will last for generations—making life more secure, and creating new opportunities, for tens of millions of Americans.

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43 comments

Amen!

- zardoz67

November 7, 2012 at 7:33am

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Romney ran on lowering top rates and the President ran on raising them. For the Fiscal Cliff, there's a top rate mandate. We vitiated the "not raise taxes on any American" mantra. It's time for common sense tax policy supported by data and valid economic thought.

- Nusholtz

November 7, 2012 at 7:38am

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Obama now needs to go for broke - no holds barred! So says this white, Hispanic female voter, "the authentic face of America."

- Claris

November 7, 2012 at 8:05am

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Another great post, Jonathan, a consice evaluation! Your "I have no idea" comment proves that you are a good, old-fashioned, real pundit.

- kras

November 7, 2012 at 8:08am

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If the Democrats are smart (I know, it's a big "if"), they are starting this morning to recruit smart, 40-something women, for every House and Senate seat that is not locked into rural, aging, white mediocrity. Minorities are a big part of the story here, to be sure, and I welcome them as well, but the big story is that both professional and working class women care that government does something for us besides fight wars and enrich plutocrats, and nobody articulates those values better than women such as - to draw a name out my own neighborhood - Amy Klobuchar, and her like.

- IowaBeauty

November 7, 2012 at 8:09am

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I'm right there with you. What you waited over two years to write, I waited (nervously) over two years to read. Luckily, I heard you on NPR's Fresh Air at the beginning of this whole ride, and I was able to benefit from your clear and honest reporting for the entire, improbable run. When you can't control something, understanding what is happening is such a comfort. Thanks for everything.

- reneewilso

November 7, 2012 at 8:25am

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Electoral College margin notwithstanding, 50% to 48% is not a mandate of the popular vote.

- jgmusgrove

November 7, 2012 at 8:47am

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Quem civitatem habemus? Quae scelera videmus?

- Spengler47

November 7, 2012 at 8:56am

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"50% to 48% is not a mandate of the popular vote." Nobody told Bush that in 2000. I say call it a mandate and ride that horse until it drops.

- IowaBeauty

November 7, 2012 at 8:57am

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"Obama’s reelection guarantees that the laws passed during his first term stay on the books. " Absolutely. That is what this election was about. The Republicans wanted to roll back the New Deal immediately too -- and were appalled that Eisenhower didn't do it. That left it in place long enough for the electorate to finally see how valuable it was, which has caused every attack on the New Deal to fail. Giving Obamacare 4 more years to fully kick in should have a similar effect. Now, if only Obama realizes that the "new House" he faces is EXACTLY the same as the "old House" he faced -- meaning he MUST NOT 'pre-compromise' with them. They WILL "Hold America Hostage" again. Obama must not fold this time -- let the Bush Tax-Cuts Expire, all of them if the House won't compromise.

- AllanL5

November 7, 2012 at 9:04am

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We have also got to push for real gerrymander reform, the House does not remotely resemble America. My congressman won by 21 points. This might be ok if it is Manhatten but my district's boundaries are insane. The Lehigh Valley is easily large enough for a Congressman but instead this district is shaped like an alien inkblot. If it were the Lehigh Valley everyone has a common frame of reference and traditionally this district was a swing district. I guess the real measure of how bad it is would be reflected by how many people split their ticket voting Obama for Pres. and a Republican for the house. Precious few I suspect. And damn right Obama won a mandate, he won both elections plus 300 in the electoral college, something Bush could only dream about. Fox news has been shouting all morning that Obama has to govern as a Republican because...something... micro poll Romney won on the economy and something.... freedom.

- blackton

November 7, 2012 at 9:15am

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and for all the illiterate people out there here is the definition of mandate: a command or authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative The electorate gave Obama authorization by electing him. And don't give me bullshit about the House, had districts not been gerrymandered by Republican governors relentlessly due to the 2010 elections Dems would have won the house.

- blackton

November 7, 2012 at 9:20am

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"[T]he default action—doing nothing—is far worse for Republicans than it is for him". Chait's post-mortem captures the "high risk, reward" gambit of the Republicans; they rolled the dice, and they lost. My heart tells me to stick it in their face; but my head tells me that the time to compromise is when you have the leverage, and right now, Obama has the leverage. A fairer tax system should be the start, one that takes into account that we have two tax systems, one for the rich, the income tax, and one for the poor and middle class, the payroll tax. It may not be possible to eliminate the regressive payroll tax (Noah's position), but it is possible to unify them so that the combination of the two isn't nearly as regressive and Republicans can't once again enact enormous payroll tax increases for the poor and middle class while cutting income taxes for the wealthy. How? By making the combined (payroll and income) tax rate paid by the poor and middle class never exceed the rate paid by the wealthy; in other words, a progressive federal tax system not just a progressive income tax system. Compromise will not be easy, for Democrats as well as Republicans. What we will soon learn, as we approach the misnamed fiscal cliff (I'd call it fiscal solvency), is that the hysteria on the right about impending insolvency of social security and Medicare, of the entire federal government, was more campaign theme than economics, and part of the right's strategy for "starving the beast". But that doesn't mean that we should accept the default position of doing nothing. There is no time like now to accomplish real tax reform, one that provides both a fairer tax system and the revenues necessary for solvent, but more efficient, necessary federal government programs.

- rayward

November 7, 2012 at 9:41am

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I always shudder when I hear the word "mandate" tossed about. More than anything, what speaks to my soul in this election is that, at least for the short term, the forces of utter darkness that seek only to divide this country and reap the rewards of the internecine class and race wars that still bedevil us as a nation will have to wait for another day. I think Romney's "47 percent speech" pretty much says it all for that side and that argument was rejected yesterday.

- Lundell

November 7, 2012 at 9:48am

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"Bush proved that mandates don't matter"

- boyski

November 7, 2012 at 10:11am

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George Bush thought he had a mandate in 2004 and then spent nine months destroying any chance he had of a favorable legacy. Obama is sometimes too good at humility, but some of it will serve him well when taking advice from people thinking this is 1936 (come to think of it, that is another election followed by a year in which a president risked losing his way) or 1964. If he acts on the sentiments he expressed last night— am I am sure he can and wants to— both he and the country will be well served.

- SFergessen

November 7, 2012 at 10:24am

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With respect to Blackton' comment about gerrymandering: I believe the Democrats only have 3 or 4 Congressmen in Ohio in spite of winning statewide (Pres and Senate) I wonder where to find the total national House of Rep popular vote.

- stanmvp48

November 7, 2012 at 10:25am

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I see that Wiegel on Slate discussed the gerrymander of Ohio and Pennsylvania at some length

- stanmvp48

November 7, 2012 at 10:28am

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The congenital triangulaters, called "moderates", are trying to steal this election. The questions is whether Obama has enough purpose when it comes to economic issues. Is he going to stick up for the little guy, regardless of color and ethnic background? The Democrats still need to win back the white working class. If we face a more economically competitive world, our plutocrats will have to contribute to renewing our physical and human infrastructure. And they have to pay for a decent social safety net for those whose employers fold up operations or who become unmarketable. Otherwise we will no longer be a worthwhile society.

- amidut

November 7, 2012 at 10:31am

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Good point amidut. If I'm Obama, I host a "white guy bowling night" event in Kalamazoo or sit in a duck blind in the middle of Minnesota on a Saturday morning (I jest, but not by much). Obama has to make this about class and not about race. One of the ads that really got to me during the campaign was the ad featuring a middle class white woman talking to the camera about how the Obama hadn't done anything for her family. Wha? Did he forget to send a birthday card to Susie? Upward mobility in this country is grinding to a standstill as the rich take the rest of us hostage. Obama has to continue to point that out to get the masses of all stripes to bring this country back together.

- Lundell

November 7, 2012 at 11:10am

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@boyski - ha! :)

- Wonderland

November 7, 2012 at 11:34am

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Congrats to Obama on the solid win. However, I suspect after all the excitement dies down, we're back the same old thing: "I can't get anything done because of the republicans," which yet again confuses Obama's abilities with the long-time historic obstinance of congress. What blew me away about the exit polling was that 60% blamed the downturn on Bush. But, when pushed, I'll bet not a single person could tell you what SPECIFICALLY Bush did to put us here. That alone indicates a fantastic performance by Obama's team in messaging. I've thought that line ("the policies that put us herein the first place") was unchallenged way too often by Romney and it does seem to have been extremely effective. This no-blamed for the economy is an achievement FDR managed for 12 years: Over 3 elections, and nobody ever faulted him for the dragging economy that he hyper-managed (to a fault) by doing things such as creating federal power companies, guessing the price of gold each morning and destroying hogs (to keep the price up) while people starved to death. Credit, again, to Obama's team there. That is an awesome feat. As of this morning, Romney hasn't even matched McCain's 59M vote turnout, which is shocking to me. Obama fell 10M votes short of 2008 totals and republicans might break even after all is said and done. In any case, dig in: the 4 years are going to be more fun all over again :)

- seattleeng

November 7, 2012 at 11:34am

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First, congratulations to the TNR liberal readership on reelecting your candidate. “Romney and the Republicans had turned the election into a referendum on liberalism” Umm, not really. The election was mostly about Bain, tax returns, who supported bailouts (rather than whether bailouts are a good idea), ships, bayonets, and how many people are on food stamps now. Did I miss some great ideological battle focused on large issues? “They proposed massive, fundamental changes to the welfare state and wholesale rollbacks of women’s rights…” Again, Mr. Cohn and I saw an entirely different election. Here is the bottom line, with the tactics used to win this election, Obama is going to face a very unfriendly 48%. The House Republicans are going to echo this sentiment. Very little of Obama's agenda that dependent on Congress is going to get through.

- Nicomachus

November 7, 2012 at 11:41am

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nico, his second term will be about consolidation of the accomplishments of his first and with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts he has the far stronger hand. But hey, why face reality even now since not facing it this long has gotten the Republicans so far.

- blackton

November 7, 2012 at 12:11pm

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I shy away from the idea of mandates. Politics is too fluid for that. I remember 43's arrogant "political capital" speech in the Rose Garden in 2004 the morning after the election. "I've been given some political capital and I'm going to spend it." And within weeks he had blown it. He spent it on trying to convince Middle America that privatizing Social Security would be a good for our country--and got booed offstage. And then along came Katrina. So much for political capital. Obama's not the type to push for things that will harm Americans, like privatizing Social Security. Obamacare is eventually going to help many millions of Americans. It's already helping a friend of mine with a preexisting condition. If Obama has a mandate, it's to continue on his present course, thinking of ways to protect all Americans, including rich people, from predators. That's the real function of government--to protect people--not to hand over their Social Security benefits to Wall Street predators. Mike Murphy said this morning on Fox that the GOP is going to have to start appealing to more demographics than grumpy old white men. Have they learned anything from this election? We'll see. I have faith that they CAN change. BTW, Obama did get a mandate on the economy. The economy is recovering from a crash that occurred under a Republican. Romney would have taken us back to that Republican's policies and even further to the Right. Most Americans just don't trust the economy with a Republican right now. My sister has a friend who's a very successful Republican businessman. But he voted for Obama twice, because he says the current GOP's numbers don't add up. And he should know.

- magboy47.

November 7, 2012 at 12:12pm

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seattle, you make a fair point that most people would not be able to list those policies that are ascribed to Bush (and, in fact, a couple of key examples of financial deregulation go back to the Clinton administration). But people are not incorrect in any way to have an intuitive understanding that a combination of tax cuts, unfunded liabilities, and two wars run on the credit card added up to something, and that something wasn't good. If they did in fact list those things I've just listed, would you accept that as at least a prima facie case for saying the damage was done before Obama? Regarding FDR's micro-managing, yes, there are some things that can be seen as inappropriate from the standpoint of today's wisdom, but the creation of federal power companies isn't one of them. The TVA, to take the prime example, was created because nothing would move the small and hidebound power companies in the South in particular to invest in improving the grid, expand into rural areas, innovate technologically etc. They were more interested in having a captive market in the towns and cities where density was profitable and the market secure. There was no profit to be made from rural electrification (one of the classic situations where the market fails), so why should they bother? was their attitude.

- ironyroad

November 7, 2012 at 12:27pm

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A great essay, and I roundly agree. But we still have to do something about the cost side of health care; and about entitlements. These problems are not going away, and they will require bipartisan solutions. Somehow we must learn to work together again -- quaint as that thought sounds now.

- slburson1

November 7, 2012 at 1:11pm

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Like it or not, "Security" as Cohn describes it costs a lot. The only way to get there is with European style taxation. I would hope the Repubs would accept the Obama win, and insist on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in full, as that is the only proposal on the table that will provide the funds to pay for the government that the folks voted for (19-20% GDP under Clinton) with a gradually increasing % GDP going forward, to cover the future holes in SS, MC and ACA. Unfortunately they won't, and the can will get kicked further down the road, Dems and Repubs with their hands over their ears and eyes, but of course, not their mouths. Agree with Rayward about the "fiscal cliff" being fiscal sanity. For the sake of the fisc, bite the bullett, while we are still distant from another election.

- ds111

November 7, 2012 at 1:46pm

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I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'm glad we have conservatives like Seattle, Nico, and Mr_Rationale post here. It's a great reminder as to just what kind of denial, or altered reality progressives face when working with the remainder of the unreconstructed white males in this country. In fact, one sitting next to me went to bed last night before the election count was over and just express surprise at the news that Obama won. Fox News FTW!

- jet

November 7, 2012 at 1:56pm

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Great essay. I'm praying that we can start pulling together now, remembering that we truly are the United States, and that the Civil War was fought 150 years ago. We need to tease out common sense issues like taxation from the visceral, tribal and religious and even gender issues. This diverse nation will always disagree but surely we can find common ground? It's hard when one major party has developed an alternate reality - we saw it in the denial of Nate Silver's clear, cool numbers, same thing with Clinton's masterful explanation of arithmetic. Gore talked about it and Bush accused him of "fuzzy math," but in fact Bush's math was catastrophically wrong and we're paying for it now.

- Sophia

November 7, 2012 at 2:21pm

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That's ok Jet, I suspect they think the same about you. Nice win though! I like TNR even though I most often disagree, because it is a challenge to my thinking.

- ds111

November 7, 2012 at 2:23pm

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As for those social issues: white people, please realize you aren't alone on this planet. The rest of us are people too and we are also Americans. WaPo had a feature yesterday, you could pick an Obama or a Romney button, and write a short statement as to why you voted for either. So many Romney buttons said, "Because I'm American." Well, so are we. If we could finally accept this fact - that women, Jews, black people, Latinos, gay people, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Native Americans! - and on and on - if we could finally accept the fact that we're all Americans, that this is a glorious rainbow of people - a beautiful thing, not a fearful thing - we'd get somewhere.

- Sophia

November 7, 2012 at 2:25pm

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Spengler47, we live in a decent country (not city) and I don't know what "crimes" you are talking about, unless it is the crimes the Republicans tried to commit by keeping citizens from the polls.

- arnon1

November 7, 2012 at 3:37pm

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"The congenital triangulaters, called "moderates", are trying to steal this election. The questions is whether Obama has enough purpose when it comes to economic issues. Is he going to stick up for the little guy, regardless of color and ethnic background? The Democrats still need to win back the white working class." Sorry, amidut, but this makes no sense. If you want to win back the working class, then centrist is the best arrow in your quiver. The American working class are not liberals; they can be convinced to be progressive on a lot of issues, but they are not, and unless they change radically along with the demographics, making them into left wing social democrats or anything else that is much left of centrist is a fool's errand.

- IowaBeauty

November 7, 2012 at 4:35pm

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Great post, JC. Thanks!

- Thunderroad

November 7, 2012 at 6:21pm

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The new Democratic Senators from Indiana and North Dakota are more conservative than their predecessors. I heard Angus King on NPR last night, so, he is a fiscal conservative. WV Joe Manchin. Gerrymandering? Two SCOTUS cases after the 2000 redistricting settled, like every other case before them, that, while damaging to democracy, it is totally up to each state to apportion their representatives. The one from Pennsylvania was the real final precedent. Last time I checked, Iowa's non-partisan independent commission did the best job of redrawing competitive districts. Only 25% of voters self-identify as liberal. Moderate means FISCAL CONSERVATIVE, in both parties, because that is #1. irony: great rebuttal on Rural Electrification. Caro covered that story in one of the LBJ bios.

- K2K

November 7, 2012 at 9:11pm

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Thanks K2K. I remember being very struck by this story when I read it years ago, I think in Studs Terkel's book of interviews about the 1930s.

- ironyroad

November 7, 2012 at 9:26pm

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Being a champion for universal health care (not the same as insurance) is not a liberal cause. The American system of tying health insurance to employment was an aberration of history. The Tories supported Britain's National Health, in a series of steps, when they discovered what poverty had done to the young men who needed to die in the trenches of WW1, to preserve... One of the hypocrisies of "shipping our jobs to China" is that by, 2001, the last time I did an economic forecast and had to buy the data, more than ONE MILLION manufacturing jobs had moved to Canada. Because health care was not part of unit labor cost. Same thing in Europe. The crazy thing is, back then, it was impossible to get a Republican business executive to understand why European unit labor costs are often lower than America, for the same reason. The ACA reform most urgently needed is a replacement for the LongTermCare bit that proved unworkable and was dropped earlier this year. That is a huge part of the health care cost issue. I still think the best way to provide universal access to health care is at the community level, with all staff on salary. Any Democrat could sell that as a matter of national security if you tie it to disaster relief, CDC disease, etc. A lot if infrastructure is in place with VA centers, which is government-run health care.

- K2K

November 7, 2012 at 9:41pm

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irony: since StormSandy, I keep thinking: Robert Moses hated tunnels. Because of the story in Caro's "The Power Broker" about how Moses hated tunnles so much, he wanted to build a bdrige from the Battery to Brooklyn. It took FDR quietly getting the Army Corps of Engineers to stop the project. (The Corps still has final say on coastlines of America.) The tunnel, still flooded, was then built after WW2.

- K2K

November 7, 2012 at 9:56pm

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Can anyone tell me if a newly re-elected president has ever had the non-conciliatory, negative and nasty reactions from opposition leaders? I'm not talking about Sen-elect Flake's non-conciliatory conciliation remarks (We must come together and in moderation reduce all entitlement programs, or words to that effect). Boehner was bad enough, but McConnell was just plain ugly. But he cares nothing about statemanship, he is pure local hack made "good" so his frame of reference is entirely parochial no matter what his title. The worst part of it is is not just that mainstream media parrot mindlesslessly their remarks, but that even the increasingly discredited NPR news programs obediently fall for it and gently cushion these sorts of remarks are "reaching out" and being nice. Huh? Those guys have not changed one whit. And NPR is lost in a miasma of don't take my funding or future commercial contract fake evenhandedness which is increasingly becoming witlessness. ANd Marketplace, the other NPR program, is increasingly becoming the Republican-business world spokes-puppet anyway. Let it and let NPR itself resume its higher brain functions.

- atlasqq

November 7, 2012 at 11:16pm

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Pure delusion. There is no mandate. Millions of people sat it out. Waiting for Apocalypse, maybe? Guess how it will happen. Scratch your delusion!

- dmking316b

November 8, 2012 at 10:53am

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Reply to atlasqq: many folks think the Pres is a pure Chicago pol. Which is worse - local hack or pure Chicago pol? Until people - including well-meaning folks on the left - start to understand each other's views, you will have gridlock, economic hardship and maybe worse.

- dmking316b

November 8, 2012 at 10:57am

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Mandate, shmandate. The people who are elected are supposed to govern, as opposed to the people who are not elected. Public opinion always matters. Doesn't stop at the election.

- roidubouloi

November 8, 2012 at 1:31pm

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