No 'Mandate' for Congress or Obama

Despite the mainstream media's erroneous depiction of Obama's selection to the White House as a 'landslide,' nearly half the voters opposed an Obama Presidency.

No candidate who loses all of the states in the heartland that Obama lost can claim a 'landslide' or a 'mandate' no matter how the media spins it.

In addition, Democrats in Congress failed to reach the veto-proof 60-member majority in the Senate for which they had hoped. And they failed miserably, reaching only 54.

The point of all of this is that despite high expectations in a year in which by all intents and purposes Obama should have won at least 45 states and the Senate should have at least 60 Democrats, given Bush's unpopularity and the troubled economy, the Democrats still could not muster enough support for any so-called 'mandate for change.'

Most of the 55 million votes cast for John McCain were anti-Obama rather than pro-McCain. And of the 60 million votes cast for Obama, most were anti-Bush votes rather than pro-Obama.

Thus, what should have been a major blowout for Democrats turned out to be much lower than expectations.

Add to this the fact that John McCain was a fundamentally flawed candidate. Despite his pick of Sarah Palin, conservatives remained wary of him right up to the end even though most cast their votes for him.

But McCain was never our first preference. And, despite his ultra-conciliatory remarks last evening, this is not the time for conservatives to 'unite behind Obama.'

We will never unite behind any politician, President or otherwise, whose views are so antithetical to everything we stand for.

In fact, today is the first day of the fight to recapture the Republican Party for conservatives and to oppose any Obama-Democrat-initiated Socialist agenda they put forth.

We have a better way, and for the sake of the country we owe it to our fellow Americans to make the case for that better way during the dark and oppressive times to come under Obama and the Democrats.