Yes, let's repeat that last fact: Barack Obama did not just receive a higher raw vote total than Reagan -- as is to be expected with an expanding electorate. Barack Obama has earned a higher percentage of the vote than Reagan -- 50.79 for Obama this year to 50.75 for Reagan in 1980.
Add on the fact that Obama will win the Electoral College by 332-206, an overwhelming margin, and that he carried all but one of the swing states identified by both parties, and that his party picked up two seats in the Senate and that it continues to displace Tea Party Republicans (such as Florida's Allen West) in the House, and the question of whether Obama won the minimal mandate to tinker with tax rates for the very wealthy should be settled.
Yes, if George Bush had any kind of mandate in 2004, if Bill Clinton had any kind of mandate in 1996, if Ronald Reagan had any kind of mandate in 1980, then Barack Obama has some kind of mandate in 2012. And anyone who paid attention to the messages of the 2012 campaign -- from Obama's explicit declarations that he would ask the rich to "pay a little bit more" to Romney and Ryan's "makers versus takers" meme -- knows that a referendum was held on whether to hike taxes for millionaires and billionaires. And a lot more voters said "yes" than said "no."
The final popular vote numbers are just now coming in, thanks to states like Arizona that took over two weeks to count ballots. Find out why, here.
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