Obiter Dicta
Schieffer: No Mandate
Posted: November 9, 2012
Here is CBS newsman Bob Schieffer’s analysis of President Obama’s victory:
“He’s not going to have a mandate here. The President has been re-elected, but nobody's put the stamp of approval on his program. I mean, when the vote is this close, he — he’s going to have a very, very difficult time. ...
This is what we saw. This was not an election about big ideas — about what is America's role in the world going to be. This was a victory by some very clever politicians, and, I mean — my hat's off to them. They figured out that they had to define Mitt Romney under their own terms, and they turned Mitt Romney — rightly or wrongly ... while he was talking about fixing the economy, they were talking about, you know, a vacation house that had car elevators. They were talking about, you know, trying to keep taxes low for his rich friends. This was a tactical victory.”
“He’s not going to have a mandate here. The President has been re-elected, but nobody's put the stamp of approval on his program. I mean, when the vote is this close, he — he’s going to have a very, very difficult time. ...
This is what we saw. This was not an election about big ideas — about what is America's role in the world going to be. This was a victory by some very clever politicians, and, I mean — my hat's off to them. They figured out that they had to define Mitt Romney under their own terms, and they turned Mitt Romney — rightly or wrongly ... while he was talking about fixing the economy, they were talking about, you know, a vacation house that had car elevators. They were talking about, you know, trying to keep taxes low for his rich friends. This was a tactical victory.”