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MANDATE_ZER0

                                             November 28, 2006

American Conservatives have spent the Bush Junior
era talking as though they have some sort of
mandate, that the country is moving in their
direction, and Democrats should stop whining
about it and get out of the way, or some such.

There are a number of problems with this.

One is that even if you take the official
election results at face value, Bush has
not been winning an amazing percentage
of the popular vote.  (He didn't have it        And it is unfortunately
at all in 2000, and in 2004 he supposedly       all-too-plausible that the
had a 5 point lead).                            official results may have
                                                been wrong.  Bush may not
                                                have really won either
                                                election.

                                                LAST_EXIT_FOR_DEMOCRACY

And further:

A poll of people who voted revealed that
Bush supporters don't really understand             [ref]
what they're supporting.

For example, they have trouble believing
that their boy would be against the
Kyoto accord -- everyone's worried about
global warming aren't they?  It's important
to do something about it, so Bush must be
doing something about it, right?

   So, as far as the raging
   conservatives go... they're
   just outliers: fanatics that
   are members of a faction               And often, even the
   that's succeeded in conning            hardcore conservatives are
   (perhaps hijacking) the                people being conned by
   electorate.                            cynical profiteers.

                                             In a published memo, the
                                             conservative lobbyist
                                             Ambramoff talks about conning
                                             the "wackos", and distracting
                                             everyone else to get what
                                             they want passed:

                                                  [ref]
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