A Mandate to Raise Taxes on the Rich? Election Numbers Say 'Yes'

But it was not close.

America counts ballots slowly. Our inefficient electoral systems -- starved of resources, deliberately disorganized and little noted once a winner is declared based on exit polls and early returns -- keep plodding along through November. Millions of ballots have been counted since Karl Rove was melting down on Fox's election evening fiasco.

Those votes have expanded Obama's total, and his margin over Romney is now dramatically broader than it was on election night or the following morning -- when most of the "analysis" of Obama's win was done.

Today, with many votes still to be counted, Obama has roughly 64,500,000 votes, and his total continues to rise. He has already received more votes than were ever cast for an incumbent president seeking re-election and the second-highest total ever cast for a presidential candidate (behind only his 2008 total).

Mitt Romney has won roughly 60,300,000.

That means that Obama has a 4.2 million popular vote lead over Romney, for a 50.79 percent to 47.48 percent margin. The margin is likely to grow over the next several weeks. But, already, Romney had fallen below the 47.5 level, meaning that there is now every likelihood that his total will forever be rounded to 47 percent.

Yes, Mitt Romney, the candidate of the 47 percent.

Obama's popular vote margin is dramatically larger than John Kennedy's in 1960, Richard Nixon's in 1968, Jimmy Carter's in 1976 or George W. Bush's in 2000 (when he actually lost the popular vote) and 2004 (when he claimed a mandate).

Obama has won the 2012 election with a higher percentage of the vote than 22 presidents secured in their elections or re-elections.

Using figures from the University of California at Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project, Obama's percentage of the popular vote is higher than that accorded George W. Bush in either of his elections, higher than Bill Clinton's in 1992 or 1996 and higher than Ronald Reagan's in 1980.