A mandate? It's not just a quibble

President Bush's claim to a blanket endorsement for his policies carries real political weight, even if it's hard to define.

WASHINGTON - At a victory celebration Wednesday, Vice President Dick Cheney declared the voters have spoken.

"President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation's future, and the nation responded by giving him a mandate," Cheney said.

Ken Mehlman, who managed the Bush-Cheney campaign, also used the word.

"The president won a mandate," Mehlman said.

Even the press chimed in. A news story in the Los Angeles Times said Bush "can claim a solid mandate."

But can he? And what difference would that make?

Bush won a slim majority in the popular vote - 51 percent to 48 percent for Sen. John Kerry. He was declared the winner in Iowa on Friday, giving him 286 electoral votes to 252 for Kerry.

It would not have taken much to change the outcome. If 70,000 Ohio voters had chosen Kerry instead of Bush, Kerry would be president.

Some political analysts say it's an exaggeration to call 51 percent a mandate.

"The vote that Bush got is not a mandate," said historian Robert Dallek. "It's a far cry from a mandate."

Jennifer Duffy, an analyst for the Cook Political Report, joked that, "In the current environment, I guess 52 percent is almost a landslide."

Presidents have often claimed mandates so they'll have more clout when Congress considers their proposals.

In Presidential Mandates: How Elections Shape the National Agenda, Patricia Heidotting Conley says more than half of the winning candidates since 1828 have declared a mandate for their policies.

She says some can rightfully make that claim if they've run an issue-based campaign and won a large enough victory. But she says other candidates get "victories without mandates" because they win narrowly or their campaigns have few issues.

The biggest margin in recent history was Lyndon Johnson's victory in 1964, when he received 61.1 percent. He claimed a mandate and used it to get Congress to approve his Great Society programs.

In Safire's Political Dictionary, columnist William Safire says winners will claim a mandate with the slimmest of victories - even a single vote. He cites President John F. Kennedy, who eked by Richard Nixon in the popular vote, 49.7 to 49.5 percent, but still invoked a mandate to push his programs in Congress.

That's what President Bush did Thursday. He said, "I earned capital in the campaign - political capital - and now I intend to spend it."

He was echoed by conservative columnists and fellow Republicans.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, wrote: "The hair-pullers and teeth-gnashers won't like it, of course, but we're nevertheless inclined to call this a mandate. Indeed, in one sense, we think it an even larger and clearer mandate than those won in the landslide re-election campaigns of Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984 and Clinton in 1996."

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., called it "a mandate for action, for the ideas that were advanced in the campaign." He said it would give momentum to Bush proposals such as private accounts for Social Security, tort reform and a comprehensive energy bill.

To bolster their case, Republicans have said Bush's vote total was the largest in U.S. history. Mehlman on Friday said Bush won "511/2" percent.

But Dallek scoffed at the claim of the largest vote.

"That doesn't tell you anything, except that we've had a lot of population growth," he said.

Mehlman's 511/2 appears to be based on the total without including Ralph Nader and other small-party candidates. If they're included, Bush's percentage is 51.1.

On the political Web site MyDD, a blogger noted that Kerry's total "is the largest number of people who have ever voted against a president."

Indeed, some Republicans doubt that 51 percent - even 511/2 - is a call to action.

"He's got no mandate on domestic issues per se," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., told the Los Angeles Times. "Yeah, (voters) knew he wanted some tax reform and Social Security reform, but I don't think he can contend the election was a mandate to do that."

Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, called it a "solid, convincing victory" because there was no doubt that Bush won. But he said, "I don't call anything a mandate when the election is that close."

- Times political editor Adam C. Smith contributed to this report. Washington bureau chief Bill Adair can be reached at 202 463-0575 or adair@sptimes.com

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