JUST BECAUSE THEY VOTED FOR BUSH DOESN'T MEAN THEY LIKE HIS AGENDA

Lyn Nofziger, a former top Reagan aide, thinks a mandate is in the eye of the beholder:

While President Bush would like to think that the voters gave him a mandate last Tuesday to push his "compassionate conservative" agenda through Congress, the wish may well be father to the thought. The truth of the matter is that barring such virtual clean sweeps as Richard Nixon's re-election in 1972 and Ronald Reagan's in 1984, political mandates are usually in the eye of the beholder. And there is no certainty that the Republican Party will remain unified when the choice is not between Mr. Bush and a Democrat, but between accepting or rejecting his policies and proposals.
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The president and his people are deluding themselves if they think his victory signified general approval of his record, even within the Republican Party. It was fear of Senator John Kerry's liberal record that brought many critical Republicans back into the Bush camp on Election Day even though they were decidedly unhappy with his record of deficit spending, his increases in the size and scope of the federal government, his lax immigration policies and his handling of postwar Iraq.