* This means Obamacare is safe, and will be fully put into place before there is any chance to repeal it. It is not perfect, and far more needs to be done to fully fix our broken health care system -- but at least we won't be going backwards now.
* The ridiculous Republican idea of keeping the economy in shambles so they could defeat the president by blaming a bad economy on him turned out to be a big mistake. The people knew it was the Republicans that trashed the economy (under Bush II), and they saw the Republicans obstruct efforts to improve the economy and create jobs over the last few years.
* While this campaign showed there is still way too much racism in this country, it also showed the racists are no longer in charge. This was a huge defeat for them.
* You can no longer win a national election in the United States by appealing only to white men. Romney won the majority of that demographic, but was defeated by the votes of women, minorities, and the LBGT community (along with just enough of us white men). If the Republican Party wants to return to power, they are going to have to shed the teabaggers and broaden their social policies to include more people.
* The polls that said Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina were too close to call were right on target. The vote was very close in those states.
* The polls that said Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Nevada, and Pennsylvania were toss-ups were dead wrong, and should be ignored in future elections.
* I believe this was a vote for more revenues (higher taxes for the wealthy), and against cutting taxes more for the rich and the corporations.
* The Democratic Party (and the nation) owes Bill Clinton a debt of gratitude. He worked his tail off for President Obama's re-election -- and I believe he made a difference.
I will probably have more to say in the coming days, but right now, I am just reveling in this wonderful and very important victory. As Bill Clinton said, this was a choice between a nation of every man for himself or a nation of we're all in this together. The nation made the right choice -- that we are all in this together.
UPDATE -- NBC is reporting that President Obama got 40% of the white vote (compared to his 43% in 2008). The huge flight of whites away from the president, predicted by many Republicans, simply did not happen. The president held his base among all races.
No time to read your post in detail but suffice to say that you were right and I was wrong, so well done you. This is the last paragraph of my post this morning:
ReplyDelete"The only good thing to come out of this whole disaster is that hopefully I will never hear another Yank talking about “American exeptionalism”. It was never true in the first place and now it has been shown to be so. Roughly half the American population rather likes the idea of democratic socialism, government hand-outs and a dependency culture, just like us lot ‘over here’. In fact, America, why don’t you join the European Union?"
Thank you for admitting publicly that you were wrong. I had been wondering if you would do so, and it heightens my opinion of you that you did.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I think we'll pass on your offer to join the European Union though.