Bush's Mandate Not So Clear

Broadcast media also took up the "mandate" theme. MSNBC host Chris Matthews announced at the top of his November 3 broadcast, "President Bush wins the majority of the vote and a mandate for his second term." CNN's Wolf Blitzer (11/3/04) offered his assessment that Bush is "going to say he's got a mandate from the American people, and by all accounts he does." NPR's Renee Montague (11/3/04) also relayed the White House's spin, before quickly agreeing with it: "The president's people are calling this a mandate. By any definition I think you could call this a mandate." Of course, there are many definitions by which Bush's narrow victory would not be called a "mandate." Columnist Margaret Carlson, writing in the Los Angeles Times (11/4/04), posed the question bluntly: "What kind of mandate does he think he has with a 51 percent win?" More journalists might want to ask the same question. While White House officials tout the total vote count for Bush as evidence of wide support, the increase in voter turnout and the size of the U.S. population also means that greater than usual numbers of voters opposed the victorious candidate. As Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher put it (11/5/04), "It's true that President Bush got more votes than any winning candidate for president in history. He also had more people voting against him than any winning candidate for president in history." And Bush's slim majority is not all that impressive for an incumbent; Ronald Reagan, for example, claimed 51 percent of the vote in 1980, while gaining 59 percent four years later. Lyndon Johnson was the choice of 61 percent of voters in 1964, as was Richard Nixon in 1972. In terms of margin of victory, Al Hunt observed in the Wall Street Journal (11/4/04), Bush's victory was "the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916." If a "mandate" is the same as an uncontested victory, then George W. Bush has that-- but so does just about every president, so it's hardly newsworthy. It is understandable that the Bush administration would tout its victory as evidence of a "mandate" for pursuing its second-term agenda. Responsible journalists, however, should refrain from simply amplifying White House spin. ---------- Your donation to FAIR makes a difference: http://www.fair.org/donate.html SUBSCRIBE TO EXTRA! AND GET FAIR'S NEW BOOK FOR FREE: The Oh Really? Factor http://www.fair.org/ohreally.html FAIR SHIRTS: Get your "Don't Trust the Corporate Media" shirt today at FAIR's online store: http://www.merchantamerica.com/fair/ FAIR produces CounterSpin, a weekly radio show heard on over 130 stations in the U.S. and Canada. To find the CounterSpin station nearest you, visit http://www.fair.org/counterspin/stations.html Feel free to respond to FAIR ( fair@fair.org ). We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented examples of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to fair@fair.org . You can subscribe to FAIR-L at our web site: http://www.fair.org . Our subscriber list is kept confidential. FAIR (212) 633-6700 http://www.fair.org/ E-mail: fair@fair.org ---