A mandate?

Does this election give the Bush crowd a mandate to do whatever they like for the next four years? Dick Cheney has already started to suggest that. If you've looked at the electoral college map of the country, you may be thinking that the Democrats are very isolated. If you saw the electoral college map broken down by county in today's Globe, you might be feeling under siege.

Just remember this: You are not alone. 48% of the country voted for Kerry. Politely remind any triumphal Republicans you may meet of this fact. Another million or so voted for Nader and other candidates (roughly half for Nader). The winner-take-all nature of these maps is misleading in several ways. The whole state is shown red (or blue) even if 49.9% of the state voted for the other candidate. The other misleading feature of these maps is that big empty states show up very prominently and small populous state are de-emphasized.

It's only a mandate if we allow it.

A better concession speech?

It mentions Adam Felber, so maybe this was on NPR? Anyway, it's way more satisfying than the real one. It starts like this:

Concession Speech

[Former candidate Adam Felber, flanked by his family and supporters, steps up
to the podium in the bright autumn sunlight. Cheers and applause are
heard.]


My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession.

[Boos, groans,rending of garments]


I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That's really special. And I mean "special" in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while
eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.


I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the
President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or
terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that.
...

Here's a link to the rest:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/11/4/123554/947/44#44