It looks like the race is over. Congratulations to Obama on winning reelection and for running a winning campaign.
Obamacare will now almost certainly remain law, and on a variety of economic issues including deficits and a balanced budget, the coming end of viable entitlement programs started from the New Deal on through the Great Society, Americans have made a choice. The road to fiscal responsibility will require some mix of higher taxes and reduced spending, and that road will likely be much harder to travel.
Under the current administration, the vast expansion of federal bureaucracy through agencies like the EPA and the IRS is likely to continue, and the effects will be felt on the relationships individuals have with their government as it increases its influence into their daily lives, including their ability to get jobs. We’re likely to see more top down, technocratic solutions to problems (more than Romney administration would have provided), more crony capitalism and more of the government trying to pick winners and losers. It’s not a good day if you believe that we Americans already have rights and freedoms, and it is the job of the government to secure life, liberty, and property, and leave much else to the rest of us.
Politically, we’re perhaps more likely than we would have been under Romney to face continued gridlock with a still Republican controlled House, a Democratic controlled Senate, and the current administration in place.
For whatever reasons, a slim majority of Americans through the electoral college (updated-and the popular vote) have chosen to face a particularly challenging and uncertain future for four more years with what is, in my opinion, a further Left, progressive President who hasn’t offered much more than what he already has.
Addition: A friend points out that there may at least be a chance at more compromise politically going forward, which would be a nice change, and at least the election and the constant political news cycles and hype will be over for awhile.
My two cents. Any thoughts and comments are welcome.
The President will win re-election with less electoral college votes than he won election in 2008, the popular vote will be extremely close and possibly show Romney with a higher total. The Congress remains deeply divided. This is the second consecutive Presidential race where the GOP ran a “moderate” candidate and lost.
However, in my opinion the answer is not to run a more conservative candidate. The demographics in this country have been changed forever forward. The coalition of Black and Hispanic voters is growing in the majority over Whites.
The majority of Americans now see the government as ‘a provider, a caretaker, a road to entitlements’ and the majority of Americans accept the slide toward Western European Progressive Government. If this new majority of Brown and Black voters accept the lower employment, lower family income and higher taxes and crippling national debt as the “new normal” may not see a victory in a national election for many, many years to come. This majority obviously are willing to continue with the economic state of the country as they believe that it will be the government’s role to bring them “their fair share” of the limited resources this nation will have available. The Progressive ‘redistribution of wealth’ will continue to gain momentum. Will the American population look to Europe and see the inevitable progression to an entitlement society which cannot be sustained without great fiscal strain, suffering and unrest? Will they see it before it is here?
Bernie, good points, all. The change driven in our society and culture present a challenge to the Republicans, clearly.
Perhaps one of the goals is to create a space with sound reasoning where such changes don’t seem inevitable, at least, so that people can more clearly see the dangers.
The choice was a boring puritan moralism on the one hand with a dose of miltarism thrown in for good measure, and on the other hand a relentless but equally boring pursuit of egalitarianism. I am relative indifferent between the two.
Malcolm, I’d say I’m more inclined than you to see in Romney a competent manager, a decent man, a technocrat, and a candidate who would focus on the economy. I don’t think however, we should have written a blank check to the military, because no one spends money wisely when they get blank checks. It’s always a choice between the lesser of two evils.
As for Obama, I see someone who has not competently managed the economy, blown up the deficit, not necessarily created conditions which would lead to the ideas he seems to run on (healing the seas, race relations etc.). He seems like a decent man, but the substance is much further Left than I’d like to see ideologically, It’s a little baffling that we’ve reelected an incumbent with U3 employment over 10%