On Democrats, Mandates, and Generation Why

Jason of Generation Why has a very interesting article about what Democrats call a mandate. It takes some of that "reality-based" logic to understand it all, but Jason gives us his best effort:

[C]urrent Democrats in the Senate have combined to receive 47.98% of all votes, while Republicans have received 47.33%. The actual difference is 1,312,795 votes. So, for the sake of argument, let's agree [...] that Democrats have a Senate mandate because they collectively received more votes.

If we were to stipulate that Democrat Senators have a mandate on these figures, then Chris must surely agree George W. Bush has a clear mandate, considering the total votes cast for him (the Republican candidate) was 62,041,268 (50.73%) compared to that of the Democrat candidate, which was 59,028,548 (48.27%). That was a difference of 3,012,720 votes or 2.46%.

So let's follow this Democrat logic:

47.98% = mandate
50.73% not a mandate

1,312,795 more votes = mandate
3,012,720 more votes not a mandate

Margin of 0.65% = mandate
Margin of 2.46% not a mandate

This whole Democratic Senate mandate thing that you may be seeing around the "reality-based" community has some holes in it...