Coming attractions:

In response to my post about mandate (11/11/02), it was pointed out to me that there were three weaknesses in my argument. First, perhaps the Republicans did get a mandate because, after all, given the choice, the voters chose Republican candidates, and shouldn't that occurence ought to count for something. Second, my analysis didn't account for concentrations of votes (that is, that New York and California, each with two senators, will necessary poll more votes for those senators than Montana and North Dakota, which also have two senators each, and that there's not much to gleaned from the disparity in vote totals). Finally, this critique continued, without analyzing the relative margin of victory in the House of Representatives, my analysis was incomplete and doesn't necessarily support my conclusion as to the existence or non-existence of a mandate.

I intend to respond to those critiques in an upcoming post. For now, though, I will note that in response to point #3, above, I confess that when I started thinking about "mandate", I initially assumed that since each House district is roughly the same size, a Republican majority in the House probably roughly equated to a majority of votes polled. I have decided that that assumption ought to be tested. I have started pulling together the polling data for the House, and hope to have that done as soon as possible. Stay tuned.