AN insightful analysis of the 2012 election results from David Corn of Mother Jones and includes links to their coverage of Sen Claire McCaskill's defeat of todd "legitimate rape" akin in Missouri, ELIZABETH WARREN'S DEFEAT of Sen scott brown in Massachusetts, Sen Sherrod Brown's victory in Ohio and Joe Donnelly's win against richard "ladyparts foe" mourdock in Indiana...
President
Barack Obama made history again, with a victory that defied a
decades-long trend: Incumbents don't triumph when the economy remains in
the doldrums and the public sentiment is one of unease. In an archly
ideological race that pitted a progressive case for government against a
conservative assault on government, the president, burdened by a slow
recovery but bolstered by a brilliant ground game based on hard-and-fast
demographic realities, beat back Mitt Romney, who embraced the
tea-partyization of the Republican Party and campaigned (often in an
ugly fashion) for the chance to be CEO of the United States.
The election, a close call for Obama, signaled that division is still
rampant within the political culture. Yet in his victory speech before
thousands in a Chicago convention hall, Obama spoke of the "difficult
compromises needed to move this country forward." He insisted, "We are
an American family, and we rise and fall together." Moments later, he
strode across a confetti-drenched stage, as the PA played Bruce
Springsteen's "The Rising." He had mounted something of a political
resurrection.
This election was always going to be arduous for the president. Not
since FDR had an incumbent commander in chief won reelection with
unemployment so high. But after Obama's party took a drubbing in the
2010 congressional elections, the president concocted a strategy for
retaining the White House. In the weeks after that election, he told his
aides and advisers that they needed to turn the 2012 contest into a
battle of values and visions—no matter whom the Republicans would
nominate. The reelection fight, he and his aides believed, had to be
transformed from a conventional referendum on the guy in office and his
handling of the economy to a stark choice between Obama's aims and those
of the GOP standard bearer.
So
as the president racked up legislative victories (a tax cut
compromise, ending the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy,
ratifying the New START arms control treaty) and then jousted with
tea-party-driven congressional Republicans over the budget, the deficit,
and the debt ceiling, Obama—displaying strategic patience—constantly
endeavored to tether the tussle of the moment to a values-based message
that emphasized the fundamental difference between him and the Rs: He
wanted to preserve and use government as a communal force to fund
investments in infrastructure, innovation, and education that would
bolster the nation's economic prospects, raise taxes on the well-to-do
to underwrite such efforts and ease the task of deficit reduction, and
protect (if modify) the social safety; the other side believed in
affording more power to the the markets, downsizing government, and
handing greater tax breaks to the wealthy to juice up the economy.
These were two conflicting approaches. And congressional Republicans
assisted Obama's efforts by embracing Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed budget
that included draconian cuts in domestic programs, the abolition of the
Medicare guarantee, and tax cuts for high-income Americans that went
far beyond the George W. Bush trickle-down tax reductions.
There was indeed a choice. And Romney, once he became the de facto
GOP nominee, reinforced Obama's narrative. He repeatedly described the
election as a face-off between two alternative paths—claiming that
Obama was intent on leading the nation into the wasteland of a European
socialist, secular, government-centric society, and insisting that he,
a lover of freedom, would guide the country into an age of dynamism,
self-reliance, and economic growth spurred by freedom-loving
entrepreneurs operating within free markets in a business environment
without burdensome taxes and annoying regulations. Ideologues of the
right and the left often huff that there is little that separates the
major political parties. But in this campaign, each candidate found it
in their interest to tie his core arguments to ideological stakes.
Romney did not ignore the it's-a-referendum line of attack. He
repeatedly asserted that Obama had failed to revive the economy
sufficiently and claimed he could do better, inflating his job-creating
cred as a past CEO of Bain Capital. Still, Obama got the
vision-and-values face-off he wanted. When Romney selected Ryan as his
campaign soulmate, it sealed the deal. At the GOP convention in Tampa,
Ryan delivered one of the most ideological addresses given by a nominee
in recent years. He contended that Obama had turned the nation into Ayn
Rand's worst nightmare—"the best this administration offers [is] a
dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a
government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us"—and
essentially called for a right-wing revolution.
Following the convention, Romney did pivot to the center. Actually,
it was closer to a reckless U-turn on a crowded highway at 60 miles per
hour. After the release of his
47 percent rant
reinforced the criticism he was an out-of-touch plutocrat who cared
little for those who cannot afford dressage horses or health care,
Romney quickly moved to sand down the rough edges of the hard-right
stances on immigration, abortion, and gay rights he had peddled
vigorously to win the nomination during the wild and wacky GOP primary
contest. (On Election Day, an Obama adviser told me that in the weeks
after the video was released, focus group participants who were
undecided raised Romney's 47 percent remark on their own: "That's what
they wanted to talk about.") And during the debates, Romney refused to
fess up to key proposals, including his call for gargantuan tax cuts
and his support for severe cuts in government programs. This undermined
Obama's effort to present the election as a choice between two
conflicting courses. But for months—most of the campaign—the president
had succeeded in crafting the contest as a choice election.
Obama had, of course, been blessed with
the good fortune of ending up with Romney as his foe. For much of the
race, the former Massachusetts governor was a Grade B campaigner. Once
a self-professed moderate, he had veered far to the right to win over
the tea party, and he was carrying a trunkful of blatant flip-flops
(some of which became flip-flop-flips). Obama's team had a tough time
deciding whether to pounce on Romney for his crass situational
politics or his newfound conservatism. But there was more: They were
able to target his days as a private-equity profiteer who sought to "
harvest" companies to benefit investors and, on occasion,
exploit outsourcing overseas, rather than build or revive American businesses in a manner that would create jobs for the long run.
Romney lost the race to define himself—a strategic misstep that
probably determined his fate. That was partly because there were so many
different past and present Romneys for Romney to reconcile. His
approval ratings always lagged. Polls routinely found that many
Americans did not believe he truly cared about them and the challenges
they face. No doubt, many voters were not satisfied with Obama's
performance and yearned for another option. But they didn't like—or
trust—Romney, even though polls often showed that many voters believed
he could handle the economy better than Obama. Those pesky undecided
voters appeared to confront a dilemma: Do I vote for the fellow I trust
but who has disappointed me or the fellow I think might be able to do
better but whom I don't trust? These voters may have wanted change and
a candidate like Romney…but just not Romney himself. And Romney's
often hapless campaign—which included insulting cookie makers and
Olympics hosts—likely did not inspire confidence among undecideds
(that is, if they were paying attention).
Obama's biggest obstacle—besides the sluggish economy—was of his own
making. From the start of his presidency, he has not succeeded in a
critical duty: selling his own accomplishments. After the 2010
shellacking, Obama and his crew readily admitted that they had failed
miserably in persuading the general public that the stimulus, the health
care overhaul, and Wall Street reform had been big winners. The
refrain was: We were too busy enacting policies during a time of
economic crisis (while managing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and
neglected to engage in adequate promotion, but we'll do better.
Then…they didn't.
After forcing the Republicans to accept a second stimulus—in return
for assenting to a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts for the
well-heeled—Obama won no credit from his own supporters, or anyone else,
for this progressive win. The fact that he lowered taxes for most
taxpayers has gone unrecognized by a majority of Americans. And most
voters went to the polls knowing little of the
benefits of Obamacare.
At the infamous first debate, the president failed to be his own best
advocate and, worse, allowed Romney an unimpeded opportunity to
present himself as a white knight who could rescue the economy.
Obama and his campaign have done a better job selling the choice than
his own record. In Washington, he repeatedly lost the message war. On
the campaign trail, he didn't talk a great deal about the successful
stimulus or health care reform. Yet he did refer often to his rescue
of the auto industry—a true defining difference with Romney—and that
certainly won him the Midwest, which guaranteed his success. (He also
mentioned the bin Laden raid.) And message wasn't everything. Obama's
reelection crew, headed by
Jim Messina,
pulled together an impresive field operation that will be studied by
politicos and political scientists for years to come. Many of the final
state tallies were within a tenth of a point of the the campaign's
razor-thin estimates. Midway through Election Day, several Obama aides
told me they had had but one concern: that there would be a bump in GOP
turnout that they had not foreseen. No such uptick occurred.
For Romney's part, he did a poor job of selling himself for most of
the campaign—until he went into shape-shifting overdrive at that first
debate. For months, he seemed pinned down by his own efforts to court
the right. At the Tampa convention, a Romney adviser
told me
that Romney campaign has become "preconditioned" to placating
conservatives. "They were in that mode for a year during the primaries
and can't get out of it."
As part of the effort, Romney played footsie with the (often
racialized) excesses of the Obama Hate Machine. He hugged Donald Trump,
the nation's No. 1 birther. His chief surrogate, former New Hampshire
Gov. John Sununu, called Obama "lazy" and said he wished the
president would "learn how to be an American." Romney hurled the false
charge that the president had weakened welfare rules to help his base.
(Get it?) He often declared that Obama did not understand the United
States or its exceptional qualities—and that he apologized for it. The
Republican candidate shied away from outright birtherism, but
embraced otherism.
He accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with terrorists
and enemies of the United States after the attacks in Benghazi. He
scoffed at traditions of transparency, refusing to release his taxes or
identify his chief fundraisers (or release key details of his economic
plan). And through it all, Romney waged a campaign predicated on
fundamental lies, closing with
brazenly false ads that were denounced by the chief executives of GM and Chrysler. (Wasn't Romney supposed to be business-friendly?)
Romney could have run a high-road, policy-oriented campaign that
touted his past as a moderate governor who pragmatically tackled tough
issues (read: Romneycare). Instead, he went with the muck. And the
muck just wasn't enough—not when the demographics were turning against
the GOP and not when its nominee could not escape the extremism of
his own party or the corporate excesses of his own past. A GOP
candidate with less baggage and a defter touch could have vanquished
Obama. The Republicans blew their opportunity and can thank the tea
party. (No doubt, in the coming civil war within the party's ranks,
some Rs will argue the party didn't go far right enough.)
Obama's success did not mark an end to political wars of the United
States. The pundit pooh-bahs will be quick to remind all that the
country remains bitterly divided—as it heads toward the fiscal cliff.
(Romney's concession speech included only a brief and tepid call to put
aside "partisan bickering.") And extreme voices on the right will no
doubt continue to question Obama's legitimacy. (It took Trump
nanoseconds after the election was called to throw a tweet-tantrum:
"This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a
democracy!") The challenges of Obama's second term will be daunting,
the opportunities for progress (and compromise) limited. But Obama,
coolly sticking to his long-term plan and bare-knuckling when
necessary—held back a nasty and reactionary tide. That in itself is a
historic triumph.
