“A New America Speaks”: Multihued And Multicultural, It’s Our Country Too
So much for voter suppression. So much for the enthusiasm gap. So much for the idea that smug, self-appointed arbiters of what is genuinely “American” were going to “take back” the country, as if it had somehow been stolen.
On Tuesday, millions of voters sent a resounding message to the take-it-back crowd: You won’t. You can’t. It’s our country, too.
President Obama and the Democratic Party scored what can be seen only as a comprehensive victory. Obama won the popular vote convincingly, and the electoral vote wasn’t close. In a year when it was hard to imagine how Democrats could avoid losing seats in the Senate, they won seats and increased their majority.
Republicans did keep control of the House, but to call this a “status quo” election is absurd. After the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans had the initiative and Democrats were reeling. After Tuesday, the dynamics are utterly reversed.
Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the conservative bloviators who were so convinced that Mitt Romney would defeat Obama, perhaps in a landslide, and undo everything the president has accomplished.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh was almost wistful: “I went to bed last night thinking we’re outnumbered. . . . I went to bed last night thinking we’ve lost the country. I don’t know how else you look at this.” He then launched into a riff about Obama and Santa Claus that is too incoherent to quote. Apparently, we are all elves.
Sean Hannity, on his radio show, was angry: “Americans, you get the government you deserve. And it pains me to say this, but America now deserves Barack Obama. You deserve what you voted for. . . . We are a self-governing country, and the voice and the will of ‘We the People’ have now been heard. America wanted Barack Obama four more years. Now you’ve got him. Good luck with that.”
As is often the case, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was a bit more perceptive: “The white establishment is now the minority,” he said Tuesday evening, before it was clear that Obama would win. “The demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America anymore.”
No, Bill, it’s not.
African Americans made up a record 13 percent of the electorate in 2008. Many analysts attributed that spike in turnout to the novelty of being able to vote for a black major-party presidential candidate. This year, some pollsters factored into their projections the assumption that the black vote would decline to a more “normal” 11 percent.
But on Tuesday, African Americans once again were 13 percent of all voters — and probably played an even bigger role than this number would indicate in reelecting Obama.
Look at Ohio, arguably the most hotly contested swing state. African Americans make up only 12 percent of the state population but, according to exit polls, constituted a full 15 percent of the Ohio electorate Tuesday. Blacks, in other words, were more motivated to vote than whites.
Ohio also happens to be a state where Republican officials sharply curtailed early voting. If, as many suspect, that was a transparent attempt to depress minority turnout by making it harder for working-class Ohioans to vote, it didn’t work. In fact, it backfired.
Look at Colorado. In 2008, Latinos were 13 percent of the electorate; about 60 percent voted for Obama. On Tuesday, Latinos made up 14 percent of Colorado voters — and, according to exit polls, three-fourths of them supported the president. Think that might have something to do with Romney’s “self-deportation” immigration policy? I do.
Nationwide, roughly three of every 10 voters Tuesday were minorities. African Americans chose Obama by 93 percent, Latinos by 71 percent and Asian Americans, the nation’s fastest-growing minority, by 73 percent.
These are astounding margins, and I think they have less to do with specific policies than with broader issues of identity and privilege. I think that when black Americans saw Republicans treat President Obama with open disrespect and try their best to undermine his legitimacy, they were offended. When Latinos heard Republicans insist there should be no compassion for undocumented immigrants, I believe they were angered. When Asian Americans heard Republicans speak of China in almost “Yellow Peril” terms, I imagine they were insulted.
On Tuesday, the America of today asserted itself. Four years ago, the presidential election was about Barack Obama and history. This time, it was about us — who we are as a nation — and a multihued, multicultural future.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, November 8, 2012
“A Word To The Not So Wise”: You Come At The King, You Best Not Miss
If you want a sense of how remarkable Barack Obama’s re-election victory is, think back to last summer. At the time, the president was struggling to reach a deal with House Republicans, who were threatening not to raise the debt ceiling and plunge the economy into a second recession. Unemployment was high—9.2 percent—Obama’s approval had dipped to the low 40s, and to anyone paying attention, the first African American president looked like a one-term failure.
But beginning in the fall, Obama began to reassert himself. With the American Jobs Act, he outlined a viable plan for generating economic growth and kick-starting the recovery. With his widely praised speech in Kansas, he outlined a populist agenda of greater investment and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Over the course of 2012, he built good will with important communities, from LGBT Americans with an endorsement of same-sex marriage to Latino immigrants and their families with a measure meant to emulate the DREAM Act. What’s more, the economy began to pick up: Job growth increased, unemployment dropped, and the overall economic picture began to brighten.
Together with one of the most hard-nosed campaigns of recent memory, Obama managed to bounce back from the nadir of 2011 to one of the broadest re-election victories since Reagan’s 1984 landslide. At this point, news networks have called New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, and Ohio for President Obama. Only Florida has yet to be called, where the remaining votes are in traditionally Democratic areas of the state. Compared with 2008, Obama lost only two states: North Carolina and Indiana. When all is said and done, Barack Obama will have won re-election with 332 electoral votes—a much larger margin than the last president to win re-election, George W. Bush
Over the next week, I’ll write about the details of Obama’s victory, in particular his huge advantage with nonwhite voters—without historic margins (and turnout) among African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans, it’s likely Obama would have failed in his quest for a second term. Indeed, it should be said that Republicans have themselves to blame for a good deal of this. If not for their categorical opposition to health-care reform, the Affordable Care Act would have never been passed in its current form. If not for their harsh approach to immigration, they might have won greater Latino support over the last four years. If not for their embrace of misogyny, they might have closed the gender gap. If not for their willingness to indulge the worst conspiracies about Obama, they might have made inroads with young people and college-educated voters.
In the meantime, it’s worth noting what Obama’s victory means for the next four years of public policy.
Obamacare will be implemented in full, and the United States will begin its journey toward universal health-care coverage. Millions of Americans will be covered by the bill’s Medicaid expansion, and millions more will—for the first time—have access to affordable health insurance. Likewise, Dodd-Frank will survive, and the federal government will begin to craft regulations that will—with any luck—prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial collapse. Obama’s re-election shields core liberal commitments—on social insurance, anti-poverty policy, and environmental regulation—from conservative assault, and gives Democrats a chance to reshape the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary writ large.
Thanks to last night’s results, liberals have four years to cement a host of policies and achievements that could prove as transformative as the Great Society or even the New Deal. And this is on top of an economic recovery that will almost certainly boost Democrats’ standing with the public.
It’s still far too early to make a judgment about Barack Obama’s overall historical standing. But by virtue of winning re-election, he has become the most successful Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson, and one of the most successful of the 21st century.
Not bad for the skinny Hawaiian kid with a funny name.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, November 7, 2012
“A Foundation Of Evasions And Lies”: Can A “Post-Truth” Candidate Be Elected President?
Not long ago, Jay Rosen memorably dubbed Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency a “post truth” campaign. Within 48 hours, we may find out whether a “post truth” candidate can be elected president.
If there is one constant to this campaign, it’s that Romney has startled many observers by operating from the basic premise that there is literally no set of boundaries he needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of his assertions, the transparency he provides about his fundraising and finances, and the specificity of his plans for the country. On the dishonesty front, this has grown more pronounced in recent days, with Romney’s embrace of the Jeep-to-China lie as a closing argument in Ohio and his absurd attacks on Obama for urging people to vote.
But the key to this is how elemental it has long been to his campaign. Romney’s entire bid for the presidency rests on a foundation of evasions and lies. David Corn explains:
The Republican presidential candidate built much of his campaign on basic untruths about the president. Romney blasted Obama for breaking a “promise” to keep unemployment below 8 percent. He claimed the president was “apologizing for America abroad.” He accused Obama of adding “nearly as much debt as all the previous presidents combined” and of cutting $500 million from Medicare. None of this was true. (See here, here, here, and here.)
All of these apocryphal statements have been essential parts of Romney’s fundamental case against Obama: He’s failed to revive the economy and he’s placed the nation at risk. Rather than stick to a discourse premised on actual differences (he believes in government investments and would raise taxes on the wealthy to fund them; I want to shrink government and cut taxes) — and bend the truth within acceptable boundaries to bolster the argument — Romney has repeatedly relied on elemental falsehoods.
But this goes well beyond Romney’s claims about Obama. It also concerns what he would do as president. Romney’s own campaign has proven unable to back up the promises in his 12 million jobs plan, even though it is the centerpiece of his governing agenda and his response to the most pressing problem facing the nation. And that’s only the beginning. Jonathan Cohn:
Here we are, a day left in the campaign, and Romney still hasn’t told us how he’d offset the cost of his massive tax cut — except to say he’d do it through deductions without raising taxes on the middle class, an approach that independent analysts have said is mathematically impossible. Romney still hasn’t provided details on his “five-point plan” to boost the economy, even though his central claim as a candidate is that he’d do more to improve growth. Romney still hasn’t told us which programs he’d cut in order to cap non-defense federal spending at 16 percent, even though independent analysts have suggested doing so would require draconian cuts few Americans would find acceptable. Even in the spotlight of a nationally televised debate, when confronted with these questions, Romney wouldn’t answer.
And let’s throw Romney’s “47 percent” comments into the mix. Within 48 hours, we may find out whether it’s possible to get elected president after advancing a set of policy proposals that amount to a sham; after openly refusing to share basic governing intentions until after the election; after shifting positions relentlessly on virtually every issue the campaign has touched upon, including the one (health care) that once was seen as central to his case for national office; after refusing to share the most basic info about his own massive fortune and about the mega-bundlers that are fueling his enormous campaign expenditures; and after writing off nearly half the nation as freeloaders.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Plum Line, November 5, 2012
“Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love You, Tomorrow”: Mitt Romney Changing His Tune In Final Hours
As he made his closing appeal to voters on the final day before the election, Mitt Romney sounded as though, at any moment, he might burst into a song from the musical “Annie.”
“Tomorrow’s a moment to look into the future and imagine what we can do,” he said.
“Tomorrow, we get to work rebuilding our country, restoring our confidence and renewing our conviction.”
“Tomorrow, on November 6th, we come together for a better future.”
“Tomorrow is a new beginning. Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow.”
There was something new and unusual about this Romney — and not only that he had appropriated Stephen Colbert’s campaign theme, “Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.” Romney in the closing days of the campaign was uplifting, optimistic and inspirational — in other words, almost entirely different from the man we saw and heard these past many months.
“The best achievements are shared achievements,” the reformed Romney told about 5,000 supporters at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax. “I’ve learned that respect and goodwill go a long way and are usually returned in kind. That’s how I’ll conduct myself as president. I’ll bring people together. I won’t just represent one party, I’ll represent one nation.”
Jettisoned from the “closing argument” he has made on the stump the last four days of the campaign are the harshest attacks and the most mendacious of his accusations against President Obama. Gone is the charge that Obama is leading the nation into European socialism, his false claims that Obama took an “apology tour” of the country, his insinuations that Obama doesn’t understand the United States, that he’s in over his head — and other lines that identified Obama as un-American, as alien.
In place of those lines, Romney substituted tough but reasonable criticism of Obama, coupled with an appeal for Americans to come together. “I’d like you to reach across the street to that neighbor with the other yard sign,” he said, “and we’ll reach across the aisle here in Washington to people of good faith in the other party.”
As I listened to these rare words come out of Romney’s mouth, I was joined on the floor of the Patriot Center by Stuart Stevens, Romney’s top strategist, who is justifiably pleased that his candidate, left for dead by the pundit class several weeks ago, appears to be heading for a close finish. The Obama campaign, Stevens said, “didn’t disqualify him.”
That’s true, but hearing Romney’s new tone for the last days of the campaign, I couldn’t help but wonder whether he would be in a better position if he had taken the high road months ago. Stevens’s answer: “It would be old by now.”
Maybe so. And maybe Romney would have been destroyed by the Obama campaign’s attacks if he had tried to stay above the fray. But maybe he would have appeared more presidential — which is the image Stevens was going for in the revamped stump speech, delivered off the teleprompter Republicans love to revile when Obama uses it.
The uplifting Mitt has been introduced to crowds in the final days with a soft-focus video set to gentle piano music. Volunteers hand out “Moms for Mitt” signs to audience members, adding to the soft-and-fuzzy feel. The speech begins with a few brief words from Ann Romney, who asked those gathered in Fairfax, “Are we going to be neighbors soon?”
The crowd was big (the campaign decided to use only half of the 10,000-capacity arena, which created an overflow of a couple of thousand outside), but Romney gave them few of the anti-Obama applause lines, delivering his criticism more in sadness than anger: “Four years ago, then-candidate Obama promised to do so very much, but he’s done so very little.”
Of course, Romney’s lofty closing isn’t likely to erase his divisive campaign, in which he wrote off 47 percent of Americans as moochers and went after Obama in ways that were flagrantly false and sometimes racially tinged. And few are likely to believe his late call for bonhomie — that’s a staple of presidential campaigns’ closing arguments — or to accept that he no longer holds the “severely conservative” views that won him the GOP nomination.
Had he offered these views earlier, he might have been viewed as a bigger man, and a better candidate. “I won’t spend my effort trying to pass partisan legislation that’s unrelated to job growth,” he vowed, promising to “speak for the aspirations of all Americans.”
“Walk with me. Let’s walk together,” he offered. A nice sentiment — but it would have been more plausible if he hadn’t spent the past year kneecapping his opponents.
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, November 5, 2012
“Dreams Of His Father”: Mitt Romney’s Personality Problem
Let me give you the lowdown, one overlooked reason why Republican Mitt Romney will lose the presidential race Tuesday: the man Mitt himself. He can’t overcome his own character.
For 11 months of 2012, he had many chances to say something that was charming, witty, funny, or moving. But what a sour and dour vibe all the way.
We Americans don’t like that, especially in tough times—remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s jauntiness in the Great Depression? We like to like our presidents, of whatever party. The winning Barack Obama, on the other hand, is generally liked by the electorate, a large advantage in a close contest.
Laughter and light never broke through on Romney’s trail and grail to match the man his father—Gov. George Romney was—perchance to surpass him. It didn’t happen once. His wife Ann tried so hard to humanize him. Yet Romney never bonded with the American people, not even with the base of white men (mostly) who will vote for him tomorrow. Obama, who grew up a fatherless child and spent years searching for dreams from his absent Kenyan father, by contrast, has much more lightness and grace.
Give Romney this: tall, dark, and handsome, the man does look the part—his hair always perfectly parted. We were relieved to see him win the Republican circus freak primary. And yes, we were impressed at his crisp performance at the first debate.
But that’s all I have to say for the uxorious former governor of Massachusetts. The Mormon Organization Man’s excessive greed and ambition barely lurk below the slick surface. He can’t connect with 47 percent of us, by his own admission. A man of the people, he ain’t.
His vexing negativity goes hand in hand with an unwillingness to stick with any bedrock beliefs. The Washington Post ran an excellent editorial denouncing Romney’s “contempt” for voters, and his changing his positions radically over the course of his career. As the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy declared of Romney back in 1994: “I am pro-choice … My opponent is multiple-choice.” The line brought down the house in Boston.
It’s also worth noting that Romney’s peers—men who have vied with him on political stages—can’t stand him. I mean, it’s more than the usual give-and-take, spirited conflict between rivals. Kennedy, famous for having friends and allies on the other side of the aisle, found Romney hard work on a personal level. Sens. John Kerry, Harry Reid, and John McCain—two Democrats and a Republican—are three other senators known to loathe Romney.
The more we got to know you, Mitt Romney, the less we found to like. And in the end, presidential politics is personal.
By: Jamie Stiehm, U. S. News and World Report, November 5, 2012
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