At 11:18 p.m. standard time, Barack Obama is reelected President of the United States. That’s a wrap, folks. Good night.”
That was how matter-of-factly my friend Igor Bailen, Philippine legal adviser to the United Nations in New York reported the outcome of the US elections in his Facebook account. After hearing the update, my other friendscommented, “Just like that,” and “What, no bloodshed, not even a recount?” I guess Philippine elections affect us in the way that we observe US polling with a Third World mindset.
Like my friend Igor, hundreds of millions of people who tracked the US polling in the west would have hit the sack after results came in but many waited to hear the speech of the winner and the vanquished.
Interest over Mitt Romney’s concession was high because his camp was said to be dispatching people in areas where the process of recount may be initiated. Thankfully, the Republican accepted defeat graciously. As for the US President reelect, he rallied his countrymen to unite, urging them to “seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests.”
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When Americans voted Obama in 2008, the US economy was in shambles and the majority didn’t have to grapple with other issues except the country’s ailing economy. Fast forward to 2012—US economic indicators have barely improved, Obama sought a fresh mandate but he won handily.
Many attribute the Democrat’s reelection to his gift of empathy, among other factors, but when I read the various election post-mortems, I could only think how shrewdly the Democrats defined election issues in a way that had the Republicans continually on the defensive.
The state of the US economy is held as the central issue in the 2012 elections. Further, the American majority is convinced the Republicans, owing to the policies of former President George W. Bush during his incumbency from 2000 to 2008, are responsible for what ails the economy.
To recall, Bush ended the Republican control of the White House amid a major economic slide that saw the collapse of many US banks and investment houses. Americans are still reeling in the aftermath of the 2007 subprime mortgage fiasco, what then Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso described as a tsunami of global recession that comes only in 100 years.
Presently, the sentiment of the American majority is to have more state funds funnelled to programs that would give economic relief to more people. Obama’s health care is very appealing because it aims to cover the uninsured.
The US war in Afghanistan and the attendant human and economic toll is a Republican sin and no doubt, this was like a millstone on the neck of the Republican candidate Mitt Romney. To think that Obama is the incumbent but the American majority still blamed his predecessor, George W. Bush, more than the incumbent, for the US economy’s lingering problems.
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Demographics also factored in the 2012 US elections, a point that the New York Times cited in a post-election article.
Obama campaigned hard to win Latino voters, estimated to be one in 10 of the electorate, and growing, including in swing states and Republican states like Texas. Obama’s campaigners succeeded in shaving off Romney’s edge in Texas, “by getting about 7 in 10 Latinos and more than 9 of 10 black voters.”
I am not surprised Obama scored well among Asian-Americans like Filipino-Americans. Unlike their parents before them who used to vote Republican, most Fil-Ams interviewed by Manila media favored Obama. Obviously, his liberal views sit well with Fil-Ams who grew up in a liberal society.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney, a multi-millionaire former investment manager and Massachusetts governor was perceived as pro-rich who favored a white America.
During the campaign, GOP leaders “warned of the long-term danger for their party as the nation becomes less white if Democrats solidify the allegiance of such ethnic groups as Latinos and Asian-Americans, or, conversely, if Republicans forfeit it by perpetuating their image as a party hostile to immigrants,” according to the New York Times. Interestingly, Republican former Florida governor Jeb Bush had earlier warned Romney that this hard-line stance on immigration could backfire.
Obama scored big in demographic groups like young and unmarried people, political moderates, women, blacks, Latinos, the least and most educated, city dwellers, lower-income voters and union members. These groups are traditionally held as the Democratic party’s base who helped sweep Obama to victory in 2008.
It has always been said that when America sneezes, the Philippines catches the flu virus.
Since Obama has stood on the platform of abortion and same-sex marriage, it will be interesting to watch if his victory will translate into a more active campaign by the administration to pass the Reproductive Health bill after the 2013 mid-term elections. That means the Liberal Party has to put more partisans in the Senate and the Lower House.