The US presidential election is important not just for America but also for the rest of the world. The speed with which the winner of this 120-million vote contest was announced was amazing. By the time that dawn was breaking in our country, it was already evident that Barack Obama would be returned for a second term.
The American electorate did not give Obama the carte blanche he was hoping for- Joseph Vella Bonnici
Initially, the Republican bigwigs gathered in Boston were reluctant to admit defeat. Republican strategists were fully convinced that they would win. A few hours earlier, Mitt Romney had told reporters that he had prepared only a victory speech. The Republicans were stunned and unsure how to react. They wondered whether to play for time by asking for a vote recount in Ohio.
This reaction reminded me of what Jonathan Freedland had written in The Guardian. Romney’s optimism was the work of ‘priests’ rather than mathematicians. Freedland argued that, even though the national polls indicated a close contest, Obama would win hands down as he held a consistent lead in almost all the 10 decisive states.
The results proved Freedland right. Obama obtained about two per cent more votes than Romney and, yet, he secured 23 per cent (126) additional Electoral College seats. (Just imagine the sort of constitutional crisis Malta would have with such an outcome).
It is amazing how such a sophisticated and well-resourced organisation as the Republican Party could become so myopic. They became victims of their own spin, talking and listening to themselves.
They believed it would suffice to promise significant tax cuts to win over the electorate. Indeed, their electoral campaign had started from the very day that Obama took office, resisting and rubbishing everything he proposed.
White America found it hard to digest having a black, ‘non-American’ President with a funny Islamic-sounding name. Obama threatened their future with his return to ‘big government’.
After all, he was just a lucky guy who was awarded a Nobel Prize for what he said rather than did. Any polls which indicated that Obama would be re-elected were biased.
Once the Republican Party comes back to reality, it will have to shed its self-righteousness and dogmatism and do some serious soul-searching. The party has failed to obtain a majority of votes in five of the last six presidential elections.
This month’s vote confirmed that the Republicans are finding it extremely hard to reach voters outside their white, male, grey-haired and Christian core. In particular, many of its supporters continue to openly detest social inclusion.
A segment of American society is becoming increasingly bitter and antagonistic as it no longer believes that it shares a common destiny with ‘outsiders’. Unfortunately, some politicians and the media are fuelling this ethnic and communal animosity for their own purpose.
This political divide has characterised legislative battles in Washington over the last three years and does not augur well for the future. Little wonder that the 2012 electoral campaign, the most expensive ever, was so negative.
Romney’s campaign slogan was “Believe in America”. But who’s America? Popular conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly lamented on Fox News: “It’s not a traditional America anymore”. Today, almost one in every three American voters is non-white, with Hispanics accounting for a third of these votes. The non-white, Hispanic vote is set to continue growing.
Romney is now history. Many will hold him personally responsible for the Republican defeat. His lack of charisma, anti-immigrant stance and gaffe on social welfare dependents being pro-Obama did not help to get him elected. For the Tea Party fraction, Romney is now a moderate who betrayed the conservative agenda. The truth is that, during the campaign, Romney emerged as a competent, well-mannered candidate who lacked the right support from his party’s fundamentalist grassroots. (Also, exit polls confirmed that, although the majority of voters were not satisfied by Obama’s economic performance, they had not forgotten the mess that President George W Bush left behind him).
The only positive outcome for the Republicans from the 2012 presidential election is that they managed to hold control over the House of Representatives. How much ‘forward’ Obama will go depends on his ability to bargain with the Republicans.
The American electorate did not give Obama the carte blanche he was hoping for. Perhaps, this time round, they really believed that they were opting for the ‘best of the worse’.
Both presidential contenders in their first post-election speeches emphasised the need for national unity. Romney urged both sides to “put the people before politics” while Obama emphasised that, despite all the differences, the US is one nation united by its liberal values.
Whether these are empty words or not will soon be put to test. Even before Obama officially embarks on his second term (January 21, 2013), he has to reach agreement with the Republicans on a deal done last year, which coupled the termination of tax breaks introduced by Bush with mandatory, across-the-board cuts in government expenditure and social welfare programmes. If implemented, this $668bn (four per cent of GDP) package, popularly referred to as the ‘fiscal cliff’, will send the US economy into a recession.
Like any election, the 2012 US presidential election imparts a number of important lessons. Let us hope that they serve our own political class so that the imminent general election will be focused on the real needs of the people.
fms18@onvol.net