Presidential Election Post Mortem I

Our family has always enjoyed a lively political debate. The following was #1's reaction from Russia. 

 

I woke up this morning to the news that Obama had secured his second term with most of the swing states capitulating one after another like dominos to the Democrats, except North Carolina. As I told you, I predicted that Obama would win by a landslide. He did not even need to wait for the results from Florida to come in to claim victory. Truly, I agree for once with Donald Trump. The US should get its act together to be a more democratic country than it is. In fact, I reckon that Mitt Romney won more popular votes but lost out to Obama by wafer-thin margins in key swing states such as Ohio and Virginia. What is the point of voting if the electoral college system decides the outcome? If you are really into politics, then you should pack your bags and migrate to a swing state such as Ohio where you vote really does make difference. In Texas, due to an overwhelming presence of Republicans, it does not make much sense to vote for the Democrats, ditto for the Republicans residing in liberal states such as New York or Illinois. As a coup de grace, Obama could even win in Florida against Romney but only by a few thousand votes on a wafer-thin margin.

 

I am not sure how you took the news. Probably, you were somewhat disappointed by the outcome and had expected that the electoral battle would have held the public longer in suspense as was the case with the 2000 elections, where all of the attention and recounts were carried out in Florida to identify a winner. However, with the electoral college voting system; Obama clearly pounced Romney by winning over 300 electoral college votes against only some 203 for Romney.

 

One key mistake that Romney committed during his campaign was to threaten to sell off the automotive industry, instead of using Keynesian economics to salvage the battered down industry employing people in key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. He saw too much the business aspect of the problem but forgot about the people. He was perceived as a successful business man with little scruple for shutting down factories in the US to relocate them somewhere in Asia where labour is readily available for a song.

 

As for me, well, I am not all that thrilled that Obama won, but it means  a status quo in the immediate, an isolationist foreign policy, more public spending, higher taxes on the wealthy, and more social measures to make medical treatment affordable. There will not be any military engagement for another four years, so veterans can continue licking their wounds from their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan for a while.

 

I am sure that some members in the family are quite upset by the outcome but the results won’t radically change the ability of Obama to institute much reform, given that the house of representatives is still controlled by a Republican majority, so there won’t be much action until may be sometime next year, once the Iranians claim that they finally have the bomb.

Take care and don’t take my remarks too close to heart. It’s poke and cheek.

 

With best regards.....