INTERESTING ARTICLE FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC

Yes, Obama Won a Mandate

An excerpt:

"Romney and the Republicans had turned the election into a referendum on liberalism—not just the liberalism of Obama, but also the liberalism of Johnson and Kennedy, of Truman and Roosevelt. They proposed massive, fundamental changes to the welfare state and wholesale rollbacks of women’s rights, and challenged the philosophy behind such policies—the whole idea that governments should act to protect vulnerable groups and to guarantee economic security.

It was a huge gambit. And it failed. But conservatives aren’t going to drop their agenda. Come January, Paul Ryan will be back in the House of Representatives, running the budget committee, and he’ll find plenty of allies on and off Capitol Hill. But proposals to make Medicare a voucher program, to decimate Medicaid and food stamps, to reduce federal spending by unprecedented increments—those proposals have almost no chance of becoming law, at least in the forseeable future.

And the most recent addition to the welfare state, the signature accomplishment of Obama’s term, isn’t going anywhere, either. I’ve waited more than two years to write this sentence: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. It survived the Supreme Court and now it has survived the threat of a unified Republican government determined to repeal it. Implementation of the law will present huge challenges, but, for the first time in a long while, the administration and its allies can focus on those challenges rather than on rearguard political fights to keep the program alive.

The political focus on these programs over the last few months led many observers to say the campaign was “small.” I think these observers have forgotten how much these programs have meant—and will mean—to most Americans. For those who get sick, or lose their jobs, or use public schools, or have disabilities, or need college loans—for all of them, Obama’s victory means peace of mind.

The election also sent a big, powerful message about what it means to be an American. The election of an African-American to the nation’s highest office is old news by now, but it remains remarkable, particularly given the feverish, relentless efforts by conservatives to paint Obama as un-American. And the same goes for Obama’s political coalition. Lazy pundits have fallen into the habit of dismissing Obama’s constituency because it cedes white voters, particularly white men, to Republicans. But Obama’s disproportionately female, disproportionately minority coalition happens to be majority. And it's getting better. They are no longer the "other." They are the authentic face of America."

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109818/obama-wins-four-more-years-mandate-agenda-validation-obamacare#