Clinton’s Mandateless Presidency

[Geee]

Commentary Magazine:

It looks like it might be a landslide. The bottom is falling out of Donald Trump’s support. Wishlist states like Alaska, Arizona, and Georgia—states that Democrats dared not let themselves dream might competitive—now seem to be in play. An independent candidate running to be President of Utah is getting close to the brass ring. Hillary Clinton may end up with 350 Electoral College votes or more.

 

Too late, however, Democrats are beginning to realize that winning by substantial margins is not itself enough to claim a mandate to pursue sweeping legislative reform. That will be particularly true if Clinton manages to win the White House by a substantial margin and Republicans retain control of one or both chambers of Congress. That mixed message would (rightly, as the Founders would have had it) yield gridlock. Clinton ran a campaign predicated on the dual notions that her place in the waiting line entitled her to the presidency and that she was not Donald Trump. That’s a winning message, but it does not a mandate make. Unable to conjure up a rationale for Clinton’s presidency, Democrats have taken to mocking Republicans who believe that they have their own obligations to their voters.

 

Some have noted that Clinton’s election would itself be a mandate. Only once since the Second World War has a two-term president been succeeded by a member of their party, and that achievement alone demands of Clinton’s Republican opponents deference. In fact, George H. W. Bush’s presidency is a dubious precedent to cite. Here, too, was a president who lacked a mandate save to stay the course, who had a vested opposition in Congress, and who was eventually undone by his compromises and the vicissitudes of the business cycle.

 

Others have noted that this election will be the sixth out of the last seven presidential elections in which Democrats will have won the popular vote. That, too, should incent some bipartisanship on the part of defeated Republicans, Democrats say. It will also likely be a year in which the House remains in Republican hands. That means that the Republican Party will have controlled the most responsive legislative chamber for 18 of the last 22 years. Rarely do you hear opinion makers marvel at the mandate conferred upon Republicans’ control over the first branch of government, the body the Founders insisted was the very embodiment of representative democracy. I wonder why.

[Geee]

Sabato stuns CNN anchor with prediction Clinton will get 352 electoral votes

 

Political analyst Larry Sabato on Thursday said Hillary Clinton could win more than 350 electoral votes — a statement that shocked a CNN anchor.

 

Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is "very unlikely" to win the presidential race.

 

"We now have Hillary Clinton at her peak for the year, at 352 electoral votes," Sabato said Thursday on CNN of the Democratic nominee.

 

"I know CNN is more cautious."

 

"What, wait, 352?" CNN's Carol Costello asked.

 

"Yes, we have her at 352, you have her at 307. We'll find out on election night who's closer," Sabato responded.

 

"OK, you've just stunned me into silence," Costello said, "so it's a good time to end it here."

 

Sabato's Crystal Ball is predicting Clinton will receive 352 electoral voters. In the analysis, the team writes that Clinton is in a "commanding position in the contest to become the 45th president."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/301975-sabato-stuns-cnn-anchor-with-prediction-clinton-will-get-352