What's in a mandate?

Each time we elect a president, the talk invariably turns to whether or not he has a “mandate” and how necessary it is for him to “reach out” to his opponents. Such talk is understandable. Those in power seek to legitimize their authority so it will be easier to implement their policies. The opposition seeks to hold hostage that legitimacy so they can influence or disrupt the creation of those policies.

But what does it really mean to have a mandate? And what is the President’s duty to reach out to the opposition?

Let’s start by acknowledging that a president is granted a mandate by simple virtue of having been elected. Presumably, he has spent the better part of two years presenting his positions and making the case for the policies he’s promised to pursue. In giving him the electoral thumbs up, the country has not simply elected a president. It has leased a philosophy, and endorsed a set of policies. Clearly we do not elect leaders with the expectation that they will abandon their principles and break their promises.

So every president begins with a mandate. What follows is a rhetorical tug-o-war over the strength of that mandate, and this, like most things political, is far more about perception than reality. So we see the President pointing to his Electoral College and popular vote victories, and to the record-setting number of votes he received. We see his opponents counter by pointing out that nearly half the country voted against him. We see Bushies answer by noting the historic increases in the Senate and the House. And so it goes, with each side fighting to gain political traction.

But in the end, the nature of a president’s mandate is determined by sheer strength of personality and imposition of will. All analysis and political spin not withstanding, a president holds a mandate simply because he has the wherewithal to command it. Thus we see presidents whose victories were narrow and controversial--Kennedy and George W. Bush in his first term, for example—able to claim and act with far greater authority than might have been expected.

President Bush has spoken of “political capital.” It’s an apt metaphor, and not a surprising one coming from an MBA from Harvard Business School. I recently saw an MSNBC special on the Bush presidencies and noted that Bush the Younger spoke in similar terms after his father lost his bid for a second term. He said that his father lost because he failed to spend the political capital he’d earned during the Gulf War on domestic issues afterward. Bush the Younger learned a valuable lesson there: that political capital has a shelf life, and that only by investing it does one create more.

And so Bush speaks of having earned political capital in this election, and of his intention to spend it on the policies he campaigned on. But what of the calls for him to “reach out” to the opposition? Given the closeness of the election, isn’t it incumbent upon him to acknowledge the massive counter current in the country? Isn’t it his duty to represent all Americans and not only those that voted for him? Isn’t the opposition fair and right in demanding that Bush moderate his policies and “come to the center?”

These are difficult issues, but my sense is that the answer is largely no. As mentioned earlier, we elect a political philosophy as much as we elect a candidate. The American people act in full expectation that, if elected, a candidate will enact the policies they voted for, not some watered down version of those policies based on the margin of victory.

Consider also that political compromises tend to do more harm than good. We see this in the practice of vote-swapping in Congress, where representatives agree to vote for each others’ pet projects in order to get their own passed. This results not in progress, but rather in the passing of two bills which should have been defeated. It is the nature of political solutions to be mutually exclusive. Cross pollination typically fails to advance either cause, and often results in policies that hinder real progress.

For these reasons, I believe a president’s duty is to aggressively pursue those policies which he championed as a candidate. To do otherwise would not only betray the trust of those who elected him, but put him in contention with his own beliefs and principles. Likewise, it is the duty of his opposition to pursue the policies on which they were elected. Indeed the dynamic tension between these two opposing forces is a hallmark of our system of government.

So I would say that, to the extent there is a duty to “reach out,” it is not in the area of policy, but rather on the matter of tone. Elected officials have a responsibility to remain civil and respectful as they ardently pursue their agendas. In this sense, Democrats are quite right to call for unity and cooperation.

The problem with such calls is that they are being directed at the President when they should be more properly be aimed at fellow Democrats. Of all the charges that have been leveled at Bush, one of the most disingenuous is that he has been divisive. Throughout Bush’s first term, prominent Democrats have assailed him with vile attacks. He has been called an incompetent, an idiot, a liar, a traitor, a fascist, a Nazi, and a deserter. Not once has he responded in kind, nor has he complained. To the contrary, he has responded by continuing to do his job with dignity and decorum. Indeed, it is Democrats who have been “dividers, not uniters.”

With a second term about to get underway, it remains to be seen whether Democrats will take their recent loss as a wake-up call or whether they will continue to call for unity while taking every opportunity to divide. If they chose the latter, I suspect they will find that voters continue to reject them. I also suspect that they will see President Bush’s mandate grow beyond all expectations.