(note: we<u+2019>ll be off tomorrow, to return monday.) mandates are in the news this week, in more ways than one. obamacare<u+2019>s 2017 sticker shock prompted cnn to track down jonathan gruber, the obamacare <u+201c>architect<u+201d> last seen crediting <u+201c>the stupidity of the american voter<u+201d> for the passage of the so-called patient protection and affordable care act of 2010. <u+201c>obamacare<u+2019>s not imploding,<u+201d> gruber told cnn<u+2019>s carol costello wednesday. he elaborated at some length, but she wasn<u+2019>t completely buying it. <u+201c>ok,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>so let<u+2019>s talk about how exactly you can fix obamacare.<u+201d> his reply: meanwhile, some liberal commentators are starting to worry that if (or, as they would have it, when) hillary clinton is elected president 11 days hence, she won<u+2019>t have a mandate. as the new yorker<u+2019>s ryan lizza puts it, mrs. clinton may be <u+201c>on track<u+201d> for a landslide, <u+201c>but it<u+2019>s not entirely clear that americans will be voting for<u+201d> her. she has <u+201c>lower favorability ratings than any major-party nominee in history,<u+201d> save only for donald trump. follow james on twitter since she would have won largely <u+201c>by successfully disqualifying her opponent,<u+201d> the gop <u+201c>will quickly argue that her election was not a referendum on her immigration-reform plan, her infrastructure spending ideas, or her childcare and family-leave proposals.<u+201d> if republicans hold majorities in congress, as still seems likely in the house at least, they will claim that americans <u+201c>voted for congressional republicans to serve as a brake on her agenda.<u+201d> let us pause here to note the disjunction between the two political meanings of <u+201c>mandate.<u+201d> for an ordinary citizen, a mandate is a burden, something the government is forcing him to do. for a politician, a mandate is a license to do what he wishes. some of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s supporters are already getting aggressive in defending her against the no-mandate claim. the other day msnbc<u+2019>s chris hayes tweeted: <u+201c>if clinton wins, from day one the gop<u+2019>s contention will be that she is illegitimate. trump was a fluke and she has no mandate.<u+201d> commentary<u+2019>s john podhoretz promptly toppled that straw man: <u+201c>having no mandate and being illegitimate are two different things and you shouldn<u+2019>t conflate them unless you want to harm our democracy.<u+201d> the new york times<u+2019>s frank bruni has a column boldly titled <u+201c>hillary clinton<u+2019>s resounding mandate.<u+201d> he acknowledges that <u+201c>her election might not be any validation of her prescriptions for health care, the middle east or trade.<u+201d> so what<u+2019>s the mandate? to sum it up, mrs. clinton would have a mandate to be not trump<u+2014>more specifically, not to be obnoxious like trump. that shouldn<u+2019>t be that hard, but her <u+201c>deplorables<u+201d> digression<u+2014>let<u+2019>s remember, she also called them <u+201c>irredeemable<u+201d> and <u+201c>not america<u+201d><u+2014>raises questions about whether she even has it in her to do that. resounding! new york<u+2019>s jonathan chait argued two months ago that the whole mandate question is overblown: that<u+2019>s true as far as it goes, but why should we think the republicans would <u+201c>almost certainly<u+201d> win back the house majority in 2018 if they lose it this year? yes, the president<u+2019>s party usually loses congressional seats in midterm elections, but there have been exceptions, in 1998 and 2002. who<u+2019>s to say mrs. clinton and congressional democrats couldn<u+2019>t govern from the center and hold or even expand their (still-hypothetical) majorities? chait seems to assume they wouldn<u+2019>t do that<u+2014>that mrs. clinton would overreach her mandate and voters would punish her for it two years hence. which is, of course, what president obama, along with the democratic congressional majorities, did in 2009-10. it seems fair to say that while obama might have had a mandate, even a resounding one, after his victory in 2008, that mandate did not extend to the imposition of <u+201c>comprehensive health-care reform.<u+201d> polls during and since that period, as well as the 2010 election results, make clear that obamacare<u+2019>s enactment was against the wishes of most of the electorate. even chait, still an obamacare cheerleader, admitted as much this week in a piece titled <u+201c> obamacare is a policy triumph and a political failure .<u+201d> true, <u+201c>comprehensive health-care reform<u+201d> was an obama 2008 campaign promise. but during that year<u+2019>s primaries, he and mrs. clinton differed on what turned out to be obamacare<u+2019>s central feature<u+2014>and he was the one who opposed it. <u+201c>what<u+2019>s she not telling you about her health-care plan?<u+201d> asked an april 2008 obama ad quoted by newsmax in 2012. <u+201c>it forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can<u+2019>t afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don<u+2019>t.<u+201d> at the very least, obama did not come to office with a mandate for the mandate. jonathan gruber notwithstanding, neither would mrs. clinton. we blame george w. bush make that 11 the soft bigotry of low expectations hypothesis and proof<u+2014>i hypothesis and proof<u+2014>ii generalissimo francisco franco is still dead <u+201c>franco took decades to leave the world stage. his statue? only days.<u+201d><u+2014>headline, new york times, oct.<u+00a0>27 question and answer<u+2014>i question and answer<u+2014>ii news of the tautological those who forget history linda greenhouse, the new york times<u+2019>s longtime supreme court correspondent and now an opinion columnist, claims that republicans have destroyed the old norm of deference to the president on supreme court nominations. the rejection of robert bork<u+2019>s nomination back in 1987, she claims, was but a lark: after we pointed out the error on twitter, the words <u+201c>the next<u+201d> were replaced by <u+201c>bill clinton<u+2019>s<u+201d> and a correction appended. we guess we can understand forgetting david souter<u+2019>s nomination, but clarence thomas<u+2019>s? follow @jamestaranto on twitter. join fans of best of the web today on facebook. subscribe to the best of the web email with one click. (carol muller helps compile best of the web. thanks to michele schiesser, debbie wells, macrena sailor, tony lima, daniel lepanto, irene deblasio, mara gold, bruce goldman, robert lamoureux, steve thompson, kyle kyllan and james benenson. if you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com , and please include the url.)
a mandate for a mandate? - wsj
james taranto