"mandate" seems to be a stretch, no matter who wins.
honestly, hard to imagine anythign gets better - the best thing i can imagine is the dem's eventually get the whole congress back in '14 and firmly give up on being bipartisan, as it clearly backfired from '09-'10 - him not having to run for re-election might help give him some balls too, but still, what issue would he even but much ompfh into? no one gives that much of a shit about immigration - foreign policy bores every joe-schmoe and there's no real difference between the two parties there anyway - tax-reform? whatever. getting the debt under control is about all i can think of, but don't see how that goes anywhere w/ a republican house...