Not a mandate, but a contract
THE NEXT American presidency may or may not come up with fresh, effective approaches to the country's most vexing problems, but if it does, it will not be because yesterday's election supplied the guidance.
For the second presidential election in a row, surveys of the voters showed an electorate that continues to be deeply divided on basic questions of security and domestic policy as well as deeply divided culturally and racially.
The meaning for the next administration in Washington is that claims of a mandate from yesterday's vote are certain to ring just as hollow as they did after the nail-biter four years ago between George Bush and Al Gore. Instead, the next president would be wiser to think of his election as a contract.
It is a simple lesson George W. Bush refused to heed after 2000, deciding instead to govern as if he had been elected in a landslide with a mandate to lead a conservative revolution. The result was a polarization in politics that has almost frozen the country in close divisions.
The big difference now is that the election followed both the 9/11 attacks and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
According to the exit polls of voters, Americans closely split even on what they considered most important as voting issues.
The top two turned out to be the catchall of "moral values" (21 percent) and the economy and jobs (20 percent). Those who picked the former split for Bush roughly 5-1, while those who chose bread and butter split for John Kerry by a similarly lopsided margin.
Contrary to popular belief, the threat of international terrorism and the continuing war in Iraq were not the same issues, politically. Terrorism (18 percent said it was number one) continued to be a Bush strength; those voters who said it was their most important concern split for the president by even more than 5-1. However, among those most concerned about Iraq (15 percent), the advantage for Kerry was 76-23 percent.
By a statistically insignificant margin of 51-48, voters approved of Bush's handling of his job. By an equally insignificant margin, 49-47 percent, they said they favored the decision to go to war in Iraq. Perhaps more revealing by a narrow margin, 53-42 percent, voters said things are going badly as opposed to well in the war.
On their economic situation, 31 percent said it was better than four years ago, 29 percent said the reverse, and 39 percent said things were the same.
That kind of dissatisfaction is why this campaign was so hotly contested but the close result means that the prospects for solutions may remain distant.
Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com. 