Landslide or not?

7 thoughts on “Landslide or not?”

1. because of context.  This wasn’t Reagan’s 49-state victory… but such a victory is not possible in today’s political world.  Were Reagan running against Mondale today, Mondale would have won Massachussetts by default.  And Vermont, and Rhode Island, and much of the rest of New England; most likely Illinois, even California, Washington.  He may have ended up about where McCain is.

   Why?  A more sharply divided political climate than we’ve seen in most of a century.  In Reagan’s time, “liberal” was still a dirty word, and America saw itself as having a lot in common.  It was a contest to appear in touch with that common America.  This year, Obama ran the same kind of campaign, but we learned that Americans don’t see themselves as having that kind of common thread.  We’ve become a nation of proud liberals, and proud conservatives.  We have different news sources (Fox, of course, and increasingly MSNBC for the liberal folks).  We talk to different people, and we try not to run into the “other” folks.

   On top of that, this election exposed the blatant racism that’s been hiding beneath the surface of American politics for some time.  That’s not a bad thing; it’s in some sense a windfall of its own right.  People got to look at those McCain and (especially) Palin rallies, and recognize the look of an angry mob in search of spare pitchforks…. and some joined in, while others ran the other way.  It had been a generation since Americans have been asked to make a stark moral choice on where they stand.

   Given that context, what Barack Obama did in this election was remarkable.  But the deep divisions that have built up in America could not, and therefore did not, completely pass away in the course of one campaign season.  It’s still a landslide.

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   1. .
      
      Is your implication that attendance at a Palin rally is an indicator of latent racism ?
      
      .

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      1. …….and if you missed the crazy racism at Palin rallies, then I can see why you missed that all-important “b”

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2. But a solid, solid win.  A strong vote for a new direction for the country.  But not a landslide.

   A landslide in my opinion would have included a wider margin in the popular vote.  The percentages show the country is still divided, although not as much as before.

   Does anyone know if in previous presidential landslide elections, did the state and local races mirror the national races?  

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3. Were nail-biters, I would call this as close to a landslide as you can get.

   Either way, it’s a clear mandate for President-Elect Obama.

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4. Reagan’s 49 state victory was a total rout – and this was not at that level.

   But the electoral vote margin plus the 5% point difference – that is an amazing landside for a presidential election, especially in today’s climate.

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5. One of the networks was holding 350 as the “landslide” benchmark, and I agree.  The current reported popular vote totals have him at 52.4 – 46.3, which is a 6.1% margin of victory, and the highest percentage of voters voting for a candidate since Bush-Dukakis.  That contest, a 426-111 blowout, only gave Bush 53.4% of the vote.

   So it’s not a total rout, but it’s a significant sea change and what in today’s electoral climate must pass as a landslide.

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