After months and millions of dollars spent on campaigning, nothing changed at all. In a historical election where voters had the opportunity to vote on two completely different economic paths for America, Barack Obama will still reign as President. His competitor, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, capitalized on his economic wit and Obama’s downtrodden track record, but was unable to rally support where it was needed the most, in the battleground states.
There were 10 swing states that would ultimately determine who the next Commander in Chief would be: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada. Romney won just North Carolina (15 votes), while the other 9 states went to Obama (111 votes). The real surprise is losing Paul Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, which really shows the lack of campaign ability Romney and Ryan posses. But other factors affected the swing states’ decisions to vote Obama: Colorado legalized marijuana the same night of the election; Wisconsin has been having labor union strikes; the Latino vote has always been solid democrat, which impacts voting in Florida.
What the election proved is that America (at least the majority) isn’t ready to give up on an unproven policy just yet. Or maybe Romney’s image of a selfish multi-millionaire detracted the lower middle class.
“What Tuesday night really said, and this is something I have feared for some time, is that 61 million people have lost their traditional American value of self-reliance. Set aside who occupies the office of the President,” Republican Jackson Teubert disappointingly stated, “more government has never been the answer to our problems – for it was the root of all evil to the Founding Fathers. It’s not Barack Obama I have a problem with – his time will come and go. My problem lies with those who believe others must pay for their obesity, birth control, children, and very existence.”
While the Republicans were moping in their embarrassing loss, the Democrats were cheering and dancing with their landmark victory. “Im very excited Obama won, though I wasn’t really surprised,” Democrat Tamara Imam said, “I honestly believe he is passionate about putting this nation back on track.”
When I say nothing changed Tuesday, I mean literally nothing changed. The Republicans were able to keep control of the House while the Senate stayed blue with Democratic control.
Maybe this will be a wake up call to Republicans. Maybe this will be the end of the Republican Party as my generation knows it because if we learned anything from Tuesday, it is that the Republicans need to change their position on many key issues. Romney became too far right-winged, which leads to the loss of the independent voter. How moderate they become on social or economic issues, only time will tell.
