Obama's 'Mandate?' Well, Not So Big By The Numbers

So, yes -- Barack Obama won the election.

And he has rightly taken the oath of office for his second term. And he will be sworn in again tomorrow.

And the Democrats can and should and will celebrate. They earned it.

But Obama did not win by the clear "mandate" that he says he won by. In fact, he barely achieved a majority of the vote -- 51%. And he's the first president in nearly 100 years to win a second term with a reduced percentage margin.

And what if I told you that Barack Obama was re-elected by less than 334,000 votes?
Sounds incredible, doesn't it?
After all, Obama won by millions of popular votes, didn't he?
And he pretty much won the electoral votes handily, yes?
And all that means that the Republican Party is pretty much finished, dead, kaput, right?
Well, you'd be surprised.
Because 333,000+ votes in four states actually handed Obama his victory.
Here's how it stacks up:
According to the vote count Romney lost New Hampshire by 40,659 votes, Ohio by 103,481, Virginia by 115,910 and Florida by 73,189. That's 333,239 votes. That's what made the difference in those four states. And those four states would have given Romney 64 additional electoral votes which added to the 206 he already won would have given him the 270 electoral votes he needed to become president. None of the rest of it matters.
It all came down to 333,239 votes (in four states) out of the more than 124 million votes cast nationwide. That shortfall represents less than .003 of the total vote. Less than three thousandth of the total! Less than one-third of one percent.
That's how close this election was.

And contrary to popular belief, Romney did much better than recent GOP presidential candidates. Romney beat McCain's numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio. In some cases, his improvement was significant. In Virginia, 65,000 more votes than in 2008. In Florida, 117,000 more votes. In Colorado, 52,000. In Wisconsin, 146,000. Moreover, in key states like Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia, Romney turned out even more voters than George W. Bush did in his successful re-election in 2004.
By contrast, Obama's turnout was down from 2008 in nearly every battleground. He lost 54,000 votes in Virginia, 46,000 votes in Florida, 50,000 votes in Colorado, 63,000 votes in Wisconsin. Ditto Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio. The only state where Obama increased his votes (by 36,000) was North Carolina, and he was still beaten by a Romney campaign that raised its own turnout by a whopping 147,000.

This is the story that Big Media won't tell you.

But it's the true story.

because figures don't lie!