U.S. Senate: Burning Down the House

[Sasaki Kojiro]

People had had enough of the republicans and elected democrats instead is what you're saying?

[Lemur]

People had had enough of the republicans and elected democrats instead is what you're saying?

No, not what he's saying. Obviously George W. Bush was seen as a sub-prime President by a large majority of the United States. I believe the final polling of his administration had something like a 25% approval rating, and I'm pretty sure his admin holds the U.S. record for highest disapproval rating for the longest period of time. That's no small thing.

So it's not unfair to say that the '08 election was a very specific rejection of the Bush admin, not republicans in general.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I don't know that all the senators and representatives rode on obama's wings though. Some of them did for sure. Or that McCain lost because he was "just like bush", aka also republican. But then I missed the point of the argument in the first place, so...

You only have a clear mandate if it's the right thing to do, no matter if everyone who voted for you wants you to do it. Otherwise all the congressman have a clear mandate to hand out as much pork as they can, which is what was being complained about with the health care bill.