Republican Mitt Romney put up a good
fight, but the odds were stacked against him from the beginning.
President Obama rolled
up an impressive re-election victory and won a second term with
major support from blacks, women, Latinos, organized labor,
the gay and lesbian community and young people. Romney was the
favorite among men and senior citizens, not nearly enough to
hold back the tide.
The national polls came under heavy
criticism during the campaign, but they were right on target most of the
time. A United
Technologies/National Journal poll done at the end of October, for
example, said, “Despite dissatisfaction with the nation’s
direction and Washington’s performance, voters lean toward
retaining the status quo in Washington ... .”
And that they did. You also have to
give credit to the Obama campaign organization that kept track of its
voters and made
a special effort to get them to the polls for early and Election
Day voting. Buses were waiting at virtually every Democratic
rally to help voters cast early ballots, and a wide margin of
those votes reportedly went to Obama.
Negative ads against Romney and
constant reminders of them by Obama also helped the president win a new
term. Respected political
analyst Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of the Cook Political
Report, mentioned Obama’s attacks on Bain Capital, plant
closings, layoffs, outsourcing and income taxes as being effective
against the GOP challenger.
The country knew the president’s margin
among blacks would be overwhelming and they lived up to expectations.
However, it
was the Latino vote that appeared to tip the swing states to
Obama. He won seven of those states to one for Romney. Florida
was too close to call.
Obama trailed Romney in the early
popular vote, but it went his way as the polls closed in California and
other Western states.
The president received 59.6 million popular votes to Romney’s 57
million, a 50-to-48 percent margin. The remaining 2 percent
went to other candidates.
The tea party folks won’t agree, but
they contributed to Obama’s victory because of their hard line on
compromise. Romney
had to move to the right to gain the GOP nomination, but began to
move back to a moderate position after establishing himself
in the first presidential debate as a capable challenger to Obama.
The president capitalized on that by branding Romney as
a “flip-flopper.”
Tea party voters do help elect some
candidates, but they also put up some real losers. Their extremist
candidate in Nevada
two years ago helped voters there re-elect Senate Democratic
Majority Leader Harry Reid. Two of their candidates — Richard
Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri — lost Tuesday
because of their weird comments about rape and abortion. Their
losses helped Democrats retain control of the Senate. The House
still belongs to the Republicans.
The tea party crowd particularly
worries Latinos in the Republican Party. Ana Navarro, a GOP strategist
involved in Sen. John
McCain’s 2008 campaign and a CNN contributor, said, “If we
(Republicans) don’t do better with Hispanics, we’ll be out of the
White House forever.”
While we are on that subject, an
article appearing in National Journal prior to the election sized up the
presidential future
of the Republican Party well. Ronald Brownstein said in the
reputable political magazine that this year’s election would probably
be “the last attempt to squeeze out a national majority almost
entirely from white voters in a country rapidly growing more
diverse.”
The U.S. Census Bureau in its 2011 estimates reports whites make up 78.1 percent of the population, blacks, 13.1 percent,
and Hispanics or Latinos, 16.7 percent. However, whites who are not Hispanic make up only 63.4 percent of the population.
Brownstein quoted Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist for John McCain’s 2008 campaign, on the dismal future prospects for
the Republican Party.
“Even (if) Romney does in fact get the white vote at the level (he needs)... and is able to win the presidency with that,
he will be the last Republican that will do that,” Schmidt said. “The demographics of the country even four years from now
will be such that that will be an impossibility.”
Our country’s best hope for the future
is to see some compromise in Congress in order to rebuild our economy,
reduce our mounting
national debt, create jobs, establish a better education system
and restore our nation as a world leader. Gridlock over the
past four years has only compounded our problems.
Obama hasn’t done much in four years to resolve those issues, but voters have decided to give him another four to right the
ship. Romney offered some advice to the president and Congress during his concession speech late Tuesday.
“At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering,” Romney said. “Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the
people’s work.”
Romney gave it his best and proved once
again to be a statesman by putting his country first. We wish him well
and thank him
for his tireless and often thankless campaign and for volunteering
to serve the country we know he loves. That serious responsibility
now rests on the shoulders of President Obama.
Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than five decades. Contact him at 494-4025 or jbeam@americanpress.com