Bill Clinton: "They didn't give us a mandate - they gave us a chance"

[kpete]

Bill Clinton on Republicans' rout: 'American people thinking again'



Ex-president Bill Clinton said last night that American voters put a lot of thought into the midterm elections and decided to send Washington a clear message: "Please stop behaving like kids on the playground."
"The conventional wisdom was ... people think that Washington isn't quite working for them," Clinton told the 20th anniversary gathering of Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Four Seasons restaurant. "The most important thing to me was the American people were thinking again."

Clinton said voters want Democrats and Republicans to work together and end the partisan and ideological warfare. The Democrats' senior statesman, however, cautioned that last week's election was not necessarily a permanent result in favor of his party.

"They didn't give us a mandate, they gave us a chance," he insisted.

Kenneth R. Bazinet



Originally published on November 16, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/471960p-397140c.html

[efhmc]

1. Right, as usual. Now get to work (or get organized and ready).

[WI_DEM]

2. that's the difference between us and them--in '00 Bush lost popular

vote by 550,000 and governed like he had a huge mandate. In '04 he would have lost without Ohio and proclaimed his win a huge mandate.

[Marnieworld]

3. What would a mandate look like then?

I disagree Mr. President. Especially considering how the GOP has been acting as if they had a mandate for 6 years for extreme right-wing agenda when they only won by the slimmest of margins if at all. This was an enormous overwhelming victory. That is a mandate.

[DUyellow]

5. did he ever say that the GOP had a mandate?

[Marnieworld]

9. Not that I know of

My point was they acted like they had one when they didn't so I disagree with the suggestion that even though we have one we should act like we don't. The people have sent a message and The Dems should respond accordingly. In 2 years the people will have another message and there should be a response. Rinse. Repeat. :patriot:

[Brazenly Liberal]

6. I agree with both you and the Big Dawg

I think the Dems DO have a mandate, but it's a two-year mandate. If the people don't like what they see, they'll boot our asses out in 2008. So I also agree with BC that what they really gave us is a chance.

I just wish I heard more Dems on TV reminding people that it takes a lot longer to clean up a mess than it does to make one. We can't fix everything right away. But by electing the Dems, they have taken a big step toward stopping the GOP from making more messes while we go to work on the cleanup.

I also wish everyone would stop talking about how terrible it is to have one party in power. In 2008, that's exactly what we'll be asking for.

[Marnieworld]

12. Damn Straight!

It all depends on which party. :D

[Cosmocat]

14. It is a talking point ...

that only started to get play during the runnup to this election, as the possiblity of the republicans losing the House started to look serious ... It was a preemptive strike for 2008 in case they did lose the house, but make no mistake ... Had the republicans so much as lost 5 congressional and 14 house seats, there would be NO talk about "one party rule" ... The talk would be how america has solidified itself as a conservative country, and if they republican party held power in an off year election, they most assuredly were going to win the presidency in 2008, and the democratic party should just be broken up ...

[Brazenly Liberal]

15. I mean WE have to stop using that talking point.

It's lessened quite a bit since the election, but I still occasionally run into a Democrat saying the American people were tired of one party rule. I want to thunk them on the noggin and remind them that 2006 wasn't the end game.

[midnight]

33. A mandated chance. That's what we are requesting from

this new congress, and for them not to waste it. Get to work now.

[ShaneGR]

31. Clintons Sixth Year, Reagans Sixth Year, Nixons Sixth, Eisonhower's Sixth, Roosevelts Sixth...

All huge losses for the sitting President's party. In many cases, bigger numbers. Really, there's no such thing as a "mandate" anymore. People want results not gridlock and bickering.

[Skinner]

4. Clinton is so good at articulating the bottom line.

"They didn't give us a mandate, they gave us a chance,"

I think he nailed it.

[Libby2]

19. Same here!! n/t

[Mythsaje]

7. I've been saying that since the election...n/t

[Orsino]

8. Well said.

Clinton may have failed the test himself, but he sees more clearly than most.

[sandnsea]

10. America Chose Enlightenment

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?p=55

The real message of Tuesday’s election is that America woke up and said “Stop labeling me”! The threat of Nancy Pelosi liberal San Francisco values and the gay marriage agenda from New Jersey didn’t stop voters from choosing the D. While the punditocracy wants to conclude this election isn’t a rejection of pure conservatism, it’s hard to ignore the basic fact that six years of pure conservatism is what led to the tsunami of change.

Newly elected Democrats don’t fit the mold of the classic liberal, but they have also been chosen over the ultra-conservative religious of the past. Harold Ford Jr’s conservative Christian persona didn’t win the day in Tennessee, even in light of Corker’s sleazy campaign tactics and blind trust problems involving his real estate dealings. Mike Beebe of Arkansas, now one of the bluest states in the union, won on a platform of strong populist economic change. Like Tester and Webb on social issues, Beebe believes government ends where the front door begins. Whatever their personal views may be, they understand the Constitution does not allow government to impose social regulations onto the individual.

Consider also, the number of landmark elections that took place across the country. Not only have we elected the first woman Speaker of the House, we’ve also elected the first Italian-American Speaker of the House. Keith Ellison has been elected from Minneapolis, the First Muslim in Congress. Massachusetts has elected its first African-American governor. South Dakota has rejected its draconian abortion ban and Missouri has passed stem cell research.

The politics of the future will embrace this kind of enlightened pragmatism Americans are known for. This country is ultimately interested in results, put up or shut up. How many times someone goes to church each week or how many peace marches one organized is not nearly as important as whether the world is a safe place for its citizens. Americans, ultimately, voted for progress and results, a return to a thoughtful democracy.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. i can't speak for anyone else but I WAS GIVING THEM A DAMN MANDATE!

[TahitiNut]

18. Good. Now, just find 59,999,999 others and it'll be so.

:evilgrin:

As a liberal democrat, I give nobody a 'mandate.' To be a democrat is to want elected representatives to REPRESENT the legitmate will of their constituents, NOT supplant that will with their own, acting in the EQUAL interests of all the people and according privilege to none.

[Strawman]

13. "Thinking again" is a good way of putting it

I'm reminded of Spiral of Silence theory. We faced a period of terror and uncertainty where alot of people were afraid to publicly express even common sense criticism of the President and the war at the risk of seeming "un-American" and the conservative hard cores exploited this. It took longer for some more "red" communities to come out of that spiral than other more "blue" communities. By this election even many of those places were beyond the tipping point. A critical mass of people had spoken out and made it "safe" for others to follow in many of these areas. People all over the country feel at liberty to publicly think again and the natural pragmatism of the American people has resurfaced.

This president and his nutbag cohorts that have hijakced his party had every reason to fear the reemergence of pragmatism and they played the Americanism card as long as they possibly could.

[GeorgeGist]

16. And I thought Bush...

was the Master of Low Expectations.

[Marr]

17. Sounds to me like someone's going out of his way to say, "do nothing, guys".

Sorry, but I've never been a Clinton fan. His neoliberal economic policies really helped put the screws to the middle class.

I don't want to see my representatives "working together" with people who are nothing but corporate spokesmen. I want them to fight those people. And now that we have a majority in both houses of Congress, I don't see why we should compromise. Losers compromise, and we just won. Let the damned Republicans compromise.

[mmonk]

20. sure

:eyes:

[William769]

21. I just love how Bill Clinton can piss off the far left of our party.

Keep up th great work!

[BootinUp]

29. lol. n/t

[Bake]

22. A majority is not (necessarily) a mandate

Clinton nailed it in his typically pithy fashion. Yes, we won a LOT of seats and sent a LOT of incumbents packing. But those races were, by and large, fairly close. Webb won by 7300 votes out of THREE MILLION. Tester, by about 1200. I'm not sure what a mandate looks like, but I'm willing to bet it doesn't look like THIS.

We have a CHANCE now. We have a comfortable majority in the House. In the Senate, we barely have the majority (apparently, as long as we sufficiently suck up to Joe Lieberman!). We have an opposition party in the White House prepared to use the veto, and we don't have a big enough majority to override a veto on our own. So YES, we will have to compromise on some things in order to get things done.

People who say we don't have to compromise, we have the majority, we can do whatever we want -- well, they need to wake up and smell the coffee.

We now have, as the Big Dog aptly put it, A CHANCE.

Bake

[Lars39]

23. He's comparing the most malicious congressional majority

this country has seen in a long time to kids misbehaving on a playground?
I think a good portion of the population voted out of sheer desperation to halt the war the Republicans have had on the citizens of this country, and to get our troops out of Iraq.
People are dying here from Republican policies, and here's a former *Democratic* president not wanting us to rock the boat. :wtf:

[Beam Me Up]

24. Yeah. That's how I feel too. You don't cooperate with Fascists. PERIOD.

No cooperation. No politics as usual until these scum bags are out of the offices the criminally hold.

[kentuck]

25. I disagree...

I think the voters gave the Democrats a mandate. They want change. They demand it.

[upi402]

26. yeah man dates are for Republican homophobe preachers

:rofl:

[Tatiana]

27. Personal politics aside, this illustrates why Clinton is truly one of the great national politicians

of our time. He's absolutely right. If we don't get the minimum wage increased, if we don't have a viable solution to Iraq, if we don't hold governmental officials accountable and if we aren't ethical, we'll find ourselves with another Republican thug occupying the Oval Office in '08.

We've got to prove we're the better party, not just by rhetoric, but with actions that everyday people can see and feel.

[XOKCowboy]

28. The Big Dog always puts it in perspective

Damn I wish he'd left it in his pants when he was Prez.

[zulchzulu]

30. BIll, we voted to impeach the Chimp and his Dick...period...

I know. Let the story unfold. Let the investigations begin. Progress can be made WHILE the foundations of legal proof are laid down to impeach Bush and Cheney.

If you disagree, shut your piehole and get out of the way.

American constitutional justice must be performed...if only to say that we indeed care about America and the genius that our Founding Fathers realized when it came to abuse of power.

Either we care about our precious Constitution at all costs or we sway to the will of those that want to hide the truth.

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. I am glad the American people are finally thinking.

I just hope that no media or conservative troll interprets their conclusions for them.