I agree Lighter. Problem is political amnesia, and people believing whatever they want to believe so long as it doesn't challenge their political opinions and voting choices.

It has been ages since an American president was elected with anything that could be considered a true mandate. The recent history of US presidential elections has seen fewer and fewer citizens participating by exercising their political right to vote, with a huge gap between potential voters, and actual voters (now running at roughly half of potential voters).

Additionally, we haven't had an American president elected with over 60% of the actual popular vote (remembering that is roughly half of the potential popular vote), so the idea of a declaring a mandate/denying a mandate exists, is clearly done by people with a partisan agenda.

Reagan only pulled off 58.4% of the popular vote in 1984 with 53.1% of eligible voters voting, and only 50.7% of the vote in 1980 2/52.6% of eligible voters voting, and he is nowadays referred to as "America's most popular president since Roosevelt" by the media and Republican party.

Actually, Nixon pulled 60.7% of the vote in 1972 (after just squeaking in with 43% to Hubert's 42% in 1968) with 55.2% of eligible voters voting, but nobody wants to remember "The Crook" as America's most popular president in recent years, so we just sort of erase that history. And lest we forget--Nixon was re-elected with that majority mandate during the height of anti-Vietnam War protests. Which Americans, boomers especially, love to conveniently ignore so they can maintain their erroneous illusions about "the way it was" in our golden youth.

In 1964 (in the wake of the JFK assassination) LBJ won with 61.1% and 61.7% of eligible voters voting. People forget that Roosevelt only took 53.4% of the vote in 1944, 54.7% in 1940 and 1932, and 60.8% in 1936 with 61% of eligible voters voting.

So actually, the most popular president since WWII wasn't even Roosevelt, as he won with his 60% mandate prior to American involvement in the war. He wasn't a particularly popular wartime president. He was most popular for social programs.

Nixon and Johnson have been the two most popular presidents since Roosevelt. Funny how we never hear that fact echoing round the media echo chamber or in the political parties' spin meistering, isn't it?