Interpreting Elections, by Stanley Kelly, Jr., examines the concept of attaching mandates to the margins of victory presidential candidates receive during an election. Kelly tackles the conventional wisdom that states a candidate who wins by large margins--a landslide--has the full faith of the people and their permission--a mandate--to enact and execute the presidency in the manner the candidate deems fit. It stands to reason, the thinking goes, that the voters approved of the candidate’s campaign promises and pledges during the election cycle, and that this approval was expressed in the overwhelmingly large victory. Conversely, a slim or narrow margin of victory can not be viewed in the same light as a large one. Since the voters did not decisively elect the candidate by a substantial margin, the victor does not have the permission to fully enact his promises. He must compromise and work to gain the faith of the governed before implementing his agenda.

Kelly focuses primarily on two presidential elections, Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater in 1964, and Richard Nixon and George McGovern in 1972. Both of these elections produced landslide victories for the victors, Johnson and Nixon, with each receiving about 60% of the vote. Both landslides were during re-elections and the theory is that these decisive victories were mandates from the people for the continuance of Johnson’s Great Society programs and Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam War.

Kelly, however, dissects the minds of the voters participating in these two great presidential races and determines that landslide victories should not always be considered mandates from the governed. He looks at large amounts of voter data collected from the two races--and others similar to them--and discovers several salient points.

First, and least surprisingly, his data confirms, under certain circumstances, the conventional wisdom stated above that landslides do, sometimes, convey strong messages from the electorate, and that a mandate can be clearly derived from a large margin of victory. This mandate, Kelly states, comes from voters who are completely committed to the candidate, meaning the voters minds are clear and there is very little possibility they could be swayed to vote for the other candidate.

Secondly, and more surprisingly, Kelly’s analysis also disproves this same conventional wisdom of landslide victories. He discovers that sometimes the intentions of the voters who participate in landslides have varying degrees of commitment to particular candidates. In other words, some landslides are weakly given to the victor and a mandate can not be derived from the large margin of victory. Kelly calls these types of landslide elections "close landslides", meaning the victory consists of voters who are internally battling which candidate to vote for, and, while they eventually vote for the victor, they could have easily been swayed to the other candidate. The Johnson and Nixon landslides are two examples of the differences between these types of landslides. Johnson’s 1964 re-election was considered a "twice-over landslide", meaning a strong mandate emerged from the victory, and the Nixon victory was considered a "close landslide".

During the Johnson-Goldwater campaign, Johnson established the continuance of the New Deal--a vision of a welfare state set forth by FDR--by creating a similar vision called the Great Society. This popular vision, which created such popular programs as Medicaid and Medicare, as well as many civil rights advances, caused many voters to completely commit to Johnson’s re-election. This vision, combined with the remembrance of the assassinated John F. Kennedy and the threat of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, solidified Johnson’s base. Voters were determined to vote for Johnson.

Goldwater, by comparison, was an attacker of the welfare state and was seen by many in the center to be careless and unstable—both undesirable traits for a leader during a nuclear crisis. While Goldwater did have a committed base, mainly those that disdained the New Deal, this base was much smaller than Johnson’s base. 

An important point for Kelly in the analysis of the Johnson-Goldwater race is the amount of marginal votes that came to the Johnson side because of being turned off by Goldwater. Typically, the committed voters are sold on their candidate because of the stands the candidate makes and the issues the candidate considers important. For Johnson, this was the New Deal group of voters. Then the  candidate receives as much of the selection of voters who are less committed and choose a candidate--Johnson-- because they can not vote for the other candidate--Goldwater. This group is highly needed by candidates to win elections, and landslide winners need large portions of this group to establish their mandate. Kelly’s analysis states that Johnson had many of these non-committed voters and that, while the Great Society vision was not necessarily these voter’s favorite issues, they could, in no way, find a way to vote for Goldwater. They did not deem Goldwater competent to hold high office. These factors produced a "twice-over landslide" where Johnson had many committed voters plus many other voters that did not want the country to go down the path promoted by Goldwater. Kelly considers this type of landslide to have a mandate attached to it.

Kelly considered the Nixon-McGovern race a "close landslide" and states that a mandate can not be attached to Nixon’s large victory. The Vietnam War was in the beginning stages of winding down when Nixon stood for re-election. Many voters considered this issue to be very important in their selection of a presidential candidate and Nixon enjoyed a large number of committed voters who thought it important that he stay at the helm while the draw down continued. On the negative side for Nixon, was the Watergate scandal, which was growing in the public’s conscious, as many people were concerned of the ethics in the White House.

Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, a left-wing Senator from South Dakota, campaigned on controversial issues such as abortion, marijuana laws, and ending the war in Vietnam by completely stopping and returning all troops home immediately (this was in contrast to Nixon’s on-going "Withdraw with Honor Policy"). McGovern also promoted the continuance of FDR’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society visions, and while these visions provided many committed voters for him, there was a growing group of voters who began questioning the welfare state. McGovern’s campaign was considered by many to be a little too left-wing and not in touch with the realities of the world in 1972. Kelly states that while many voters in the middle had a slight desire to back the policies of McGovern, they did not believe he was addressing the issues properly. For example, while the country wanted to get out of Vietnam, and generally thought that Nixon was too heavy handed in his withdrawal policy, they did not want the complete retreat McGovern was proposing. They also did not like the overly left-wing statements McGovern repeatedly made towards social issues-it wasn’t that his views necessarily turned voters off, but that he continued to bring them to the forefront during his campaign, making voters uneasy and uncomfortable.

The bottom line is McGovern scared many centrist voters away. These voters could have easily voted for him instead of Nixon had he did a few things differently. This is in contrast to the same type of centrist voters in the 1964 election who, under most any imagined scenario, would never have voted for Goldwater, no matter what changes he could have made during the campaign. This, according to Kelly, gave Nixon many voters that were not as committed to his election, and therefore, the makeup of the Nixon landslide, unlike the Johnson landslide, was soft—or "close" as Kelly claims. Thus, Nixon’s landslide did not have a mandate attached to it.

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When I began reading Interpreting Elections, I quickly began thinking this was another, Nixon—Bad...Everyone Else—Good, piece. As is very popular to do, from Hollywood to the Ivory Towers of Academia, bashing Nixon is a sport I’ve witnessed—literally-since I can remember. 

(At seven, I had nightmares after Nixon beat Humphrey. My grandmother had me convinced Nixon was the anti-christ--and I didn't even know what that was at the time. And when my fourth grade teacher asked for a mock vote among the students four years later in 1972, I was the only hand in class that raised for McGovern. I wondered all day what was wrong with my classmates--didn’t they have grandmothers?)

I had no doubt after reading the Introduction that this book would be another spin to further discredit Nixon. The data and analysis seems to adequately support Kelly’s conclusions—at least for the 60% to 70% I could follow before becoming lost and having to start all over again.

I will probably always be skeptical of anything evaluating Nixon. Its a family thing.

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