" winning an election does not a "mandate" make.

First off, when almost half of the voters preferred someone else, you clearly don't have overwhelming popular support.   Even if you get 60% of the vote, that's only considered a "landslide" because it's such a rare occurrence in US politics. You still have 40% of the voters who preferred someone else.

"


And this applies ONLY when a conservative wins, right? We can't allow any question as to whether Obama had a Mandate, can we?