Good grief this place is filled with idiots.
It's a message, mandate, referendum when BOTH sides are fighting to ACCOMPLISH something, and the public comes out and elects an official to specifically push the result 1 way or another. Kind of like Scott Brown, and even on a lesser note, the judge in WI.
If the "Ryan Plan" was really up for election like the idiots here believe, you would actually have a large turnout on both sides. But the damn thing has already passed the House where this person was elected.
Since this election was meaningless in terms of the bill passing or not, this vote was in no way a message, mandate, or referendum. It's barely even a memo, validation, or poll.