If there ever was a word which explained the Liberal reaction to President Obama’s victory it’s”overreach.” A fine example of this proclivity is John Nichols, a writer for the liberal publication, The Nation.

Mr. Nichols’s latest article is a veritable treasure trove of exaggerations, exacerbation’s  and extravagance in reasoning when it comes to analyzing President Obama’s victory. When he attempted to tackle MSNBC’s Joe  Scarborough’s challenging of conventional liberal wisdom that the President is the recipient of a directive from the people on dictating the terms of the so-called Fiscal Cliff negotiations he jumps the shark. Let’s take a look at Mr. Nichols’s claims and appropriately debunk them.

As the November 6 election approached, there was a general sense that the race was very close, and that either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney could win. Even as the results came in, there was a tendency on the part of commentators to suggest that the numbers showed, in the words of former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour, “pretty close to a tie.” Even a week after the voting was done, the failed Republican nominee for vice president was claiming that the finish was “very close.”

But it was not close.

Actually, it was, is, and will be.

Those votes have expanded Obama’s total, and his margin over Romney is now dramatically broader than it was on election night or the following morning—when most of the “analysis” of Obama’s win was done.

Today, with many ballots still to be counted, Obama popular-vote total has risen to 64,817,072, and his total continues to rise. He has already received more votes than were ever cast for an incumbent president seeking re-election and the second-highest total ever cast for a presidential candidate (behind only his 2008 total).

Mitt Romney has won roughly 60,450,000.

That means that Obama leads Romney by almost 4.4 million votes nationally, for a 50.85 percent to 47.42 percent margin. The margin is likely to grow over the next several weeks. But, already, Romney had fallen below the 47.5 level, meaning that it is now rounded to 47 percent.

Yes, Mitt Romney, the candidate of the 47 percent.

Obama’s popular vote margin is dramatically larger than John Kennedy’s in 1960, Richard Nixon’s in 1968, Jimmy Carter’s in 1976 or George W. Bush’s in 2000 (when he actually lost the popular vote) and 2004 (when he claimed a mandate).

Obama has won the 2012 election with a higher percentage of the vote than twenty-two presidents secured in their elections or re-elections.

On his first claim that President Obama has “received more votes than were ever cast for an incumbent president seeking re-election,” all I can say is are you kidding me?

First off, not only has Obama received more votes than any other incumbent, but Mitt Romney has received more votes than any other candidate challenging an incumbent.
The reason for this? Well…what is known as the Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) is the highest it has ever been due to population growth. In 2000, the citizens over the age of 18 in the United States numbered 186.4 million, in 2010 the total was 210.8 million, and in 2012 the CVAP will probably fall around 214 million give or take. A third grader could have figured this out.

Furthermore, Mr. Nichols conveniently glosses over the fact that President Obama lost between 5-5.5 million votes in 2012 from his 2008 performance. Where did all these voters disappear to…the Island of the Lost Electorate?And when it comes to processing the projection of votes Mr. Nichols refers to that bastion of political science known as Wikipedia for proof of what the final tally is going to look like. Let’s look at the one of projection sites which Wiki uses as its references.

Nichols states that the “margin is likely to grow over the next several weeks.” OurCampaigns.com, one of the Wiki refs, says something a little different. They project that the estimated final percentages are roughly about what we are seeing now, 50.85% to 47.42%, or in number totals; 65,006,741 for Obama and 60,625,836 for Romney. Unless Mr. Nichols and the Democrats have a vast untapped pool of dead voters hidden away on the North Side of Chi-Town, I seriously doubt that the President’s victory totals are going to change all that much.

Conspicuously also, when it comes to the history following the performance of President Obama’s predecessors, Mr. Nichols seems to be fond of cherry picking elections results that conveniently fit into his narrative. He purposefully overlooks elections in the same time range where the margin of victory was substantially higher than either of the President’s showings. In 1964, LBJ decisively crushed Barry Goldwater by a margin of 22.58%. In 1972 Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern by a resounding 23.15%. In 1980, Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter by a margin of 9.74% and in 1984 he defeated Walter Mondale by an even larger extent-18.21%.You could say that if a mandate does exist, these men would unarguably be the recipients of this condition based on the voters’ preferences. This hardly applies to the Obama administration.

Finally he states that, “Obama has won the 2012 election with a higher percentage of the vote than twenty-two presidents secured in their elections or re-elections.” Well, President Obama is the 44th President of the United States, so this means he topped half of his predecessors in their election or re-election efforts and this places him smack dab in the middle of the pack. Not really that impressive.

None of this is meant as sour grapes; a majority of the people in the United States saw something  in Barack Obama and because of it decided to give him a victory. Whether I agree with their decision or not, I can personally respect this outcome. However, there seems to be this pathology among hardened liberals to make this slightly mediocre victory appear as some sort of revolutionary shift in ideals, even to the extent of presenting erroneous or inflated data as in Mr. Nichols case.

Moreover, Democrats are now entering some dangerous territory. Their presumption and arrogance will inevitably lead them down a path to where they will exceed the limit of reality and fool themselves into believing that they possess a legislative mandate. Might I remind my Liberal friends the history and results of the beginning two years of the Obama administration’s first term agendas and those of Bush 43′s second term? As a member of the Right, I am more than happy to have this attitude permeating their little minds.

Lastly, if history proves anything it’s that political consensus and coalitions are fleeting, not solid and immutable. Just ask the Republicans. It might be fitting for the Left to understand that America adulates Barack Obama, not the Democrat Party or its ideals. His presence is the Left’s mortar that binds, not Liberalism itself. When this magnanimous personality is no longer the standard bearer, what will they have left?

The answer is…not much.