The mandate: President doesn't really understand the message he was sent

He is already talking about the message that he thinks he was sent, newly re-elected President Barack Obama.

The problem is, he is getting it wrong.

The president seems to believe that an overwhelming majority of the American people have picked his economic plan as the one that they have confidence in to solve the problems that this nation is facing.

Hardly.

The reality is, a little more than half of those who voted put the president back in the White House -- that is hardly a rubber stamp of his performance or his policies.

And, if you analyze the vote, it looks more like the president was re-elected primarily by voter groups with other concerns and other agendas.

Add to that some pretty sad poll numbers about how the president is handling the economy and we are left with an interesting dilemma for the commander-in-chief.

He now has to decide if he really is unstoppable.

And we, the citizens he works for, need to watch very closely.

There are some who fell for the "blame Bush" line -- and a few more who even said they agreed that four years was not enough time to fix the mess that the president inherited.

We will see.

But in the meantime, this is not a time to be messing around with policies that will lead to higher taxes, lower employment and many more people worried about their jobs and their futures.

Let's hope there is someone who is in power who will have the guts to stand up and say so, emphatically.

And let's hope that it is Speaker of the House Republican John Boehner -- even though right now he seems a bit like a scared rabbit.

The election is over, but there is still hope for a reasonable and intelligent fix to this nation's economic woes. But it will take leadership and guts.

Let's hope there are still a few people in Washington who understand what is at stake.

Published in Editorials on November 10, 2012 11:24 PM