Mandate

It really was a mandate. Although the margin was tight in several critical states, Bush won by about 3,500,000 votes overall or around 3% of all votes cast. Now here's something to consider.

What if the mainstream media had leveled the playing field?

Just imagine the following:

Tonight on "60 Minutes": Ed Bradley interviews Thomas Lipscomb on John Kerry's mysterious discharge from the Navy. Why won't candidate Kerry release his service records?

Tonight on "Nightline": Ted Koppel interviews the Swiftboat Veterans and former FBI agents about John Kerry's past... his presence at VVAW meetings that discussed assassinating Senators... his "Christmas in Cambodia" trip with the CIA man and the magic hat... and his odd Purple Heart experiences that conflict with his own journal.

Tonight on "Wolf Blitzer Reports": John Kerry's Twenty Year Senate Record... what really happened and why didn't he mention it in his DNC acceptance speech?

Newsweek's Evan Thomas said early on, "the media wants Kerry to win ... There's going to be this glow about them that is going to be worth ... maybe 15 points."

Let's say he was exaggerating and the media's skewed "journalism" and "investigative reporting" were only worth, say, five points.

If the mainstream media had leveled the playing field, the results might have been:

George Bush: 64,500,000 votes; John Kerry: 50,000,000 votes.

Now, that's a mandate.

According to Michael Crane, author of The Political Junkie Handbook, President re-elect, George W. Bush, increased his standing among the following groups of people – by anywhere from one to seven percentage points – when compared to the respective levels of support he received from them, back in the year-2000 election: 1) Women, 2) Men, 3) Blacks, 4) Whites, 5) Hispanics, 6) Married people, 7) Unmarried people, 8) Catholics, 9) Jews, 10) 30-44 year-olds, 11) 45-59 year-olds, 12) 60 year-olds and up, 13) Union members, 14) Gun owners, 15) Democrats, and 16) Republicans. Hmm.

PoliPundit: Divisive