Originally Posted By donnyaz most of the time I tell democrats that they tend to think it was in the 80's or 90's
Originally Posted By SuperDry Really? But while we're on the subject, consider that W got 48% of the vote in 2000, and 51% of the vote in 2004. At least Obama got a majority of the votes when first elected.
Originally Posted By alexbook I had to read post #1 multiple times to figure out what you meant. I thought you were saying something about the 1980's and 1990's. I seriously doubt very many educated people think Obama got that kind of margin. If somebody really thinks that, they probably thought Bush got the same sort of margin as well. Here's a shocker for you: Obama got a larger percentage of the popular vote than Reagan did in 1980. That didn't stop Republicans from claiming a "mandate" then. Biggest first-time popular vote percentages: Warren Harding - 60% Herbert Hoover - 58% Andrew Jackson - 56% Dwight Eisenhower - 55% George Bush - 53% William Harrison - 53% Barack Obama - 53% If you can figure out any correlation between a large number of votes and success as a president, you're better at this stuff than I am.
Originally Posted By alexbook This actually brings up an interesting point: Political views and social groups tend to correlate. Most people's friends have similar views. So, if you're a conservative, you tend to think that nearly everybody's a conservative, since nearly all your friends are. Same for liberals. The result is that naive people could actually believe the notion that 80-90% of the population supported one candidate or the other. They'd base this on the fact that 80-90% of the people they knew having supported that candidate.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>If you can figure out any correlation between a large number of votes and success as a president, you're better at this stuff than I am.<< Considering that these two >>Warren Harding - 60% Herbert Hoover - 58%>> routinely end up in "worst Presidents" lists, I don't think much of a correlation exists.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>most of the time I tell democrats that they tend to think it was in the 80's or 90's<< The way Republicans are acting right now, that's a distinct possibility in 2012. I think it's hilarious that Republicans think they understand how Democrats view Barack Obama. Ironically, Republicans were completely blind to just how big of a miserable failure George W. Bush was, yet they turn right around and keep talking about Democrats and "their Messiah." I guess that some Republicans think everyone operates the way they do: in a black and white, unthinking world of truthiness. Actually, while most Democrats do like Obama a lot and think he's a good President so far, they've already offered their criticisms. For example: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/opinion/26krugman.html" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06...man.html</a> And that's after Bill Maher was critical of Obama for being too nice and too interested in popularity. And gay Democrats have been very critical.
Originally Posted By piperlynne Yes DAR, it's a time warp. We've perfected reverse time travel on the WE LP boards ;-)
