American Elections of 2012

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

The November 6 was the decisive moment for the American people and the candidates for the presidency, senate seats, House of Representatives and so on, as millions of voters went to polls to elect the candidates of their choice, and voted them ending the uncertainty of who would get elected. President Barack Obama got the second chance. Democrats retained the majority in the senate, and republicans held on to the House of Representatives. After eighteen months of arduous campaign, and spending so much of money, candidates could finally take rest whether they have won the election or not. Now, let us focus on the presidential election and see why the incumbent president has won and why the challenger has lost.

The American economy has been doing so badly and the employment rate has been so high, the incumbent president has almost no hope to win the election. However, the incumbent president did manage to win the election because he has been able to convince the American voters that he has done his best to better the economy, and has been able to create the jobs despite the worst possible economy he had inherited.

Former President George W Bush had left the economy in very bad shape causing the trillions-of-dollar debt in 2008. President Bill Clinton had left the White House with savings in 2000 but as soon as President Bush came into the office, he cut the tax and returned the money to taxpayers: a few hundred dollars to the middle class people but millions of dollars to the rich people ultimately causing deficit of trillions. Currently, the national debt stands at $ 16 trillions and more.

Despite the gloomy economy, and the high unemployment rate, and the poor performance in the first presidential debate, President Obama managed to win the election with a large majority of electoral votes. Concerning the economy, voters believed that the poor economy was the doing of the previous president, and the incumbent president had done his best to put the economy back on track, and the economy has been improving and the economy would be better off in the next term of his presidency.

President Barack Obama also has convinced the American voters that he would do better in the next term. His slogan ‘FORWARD’ means move ahead gave the people impression that he would really do better in the next term of office. His message was to look forward not backward, and well taken by the voters.

President Obama has put the emphasis on improving the economy investing in education, research, high tech, clean energy and infrastructure improvement. He said that his administration would improve the school education particularly science and math the two subjects the American schools have been lagging behind other nations in the world. President Obama wants to make the American people competitive to face the challenge from the people of other countries. In other words, President Obama wants to make American people efficient in the world of competition and bring back the jobs lost to the foreign emerging nations.

President Obama has insisted on making loans easy to the students aspiring to higher education but challenger Romney told the students to ask their parents for loans as he did assuming every American parent was rich enough as his father was to fund the higher education of their offspring.

The president is for taxing the top two percent rich people, and keeping the tax on the middle class people unchanged, and cut the unproductive expenses to balance the budget and reduce the national debt. To create jobs as many as possible, the president is for promoting small businesses, and for giving tax incentive to the companies coming back to America from overseas. Thus, the president wants to bring back the jobs lost to the emerging nations.

Hurricane Sandy also has helped the president to show how much he cares for the people. The hurricane hit the east coast of America on Monday, October 29, 2012 just a week before the presidential election. The president suspended his presidential campaign and stayed in the White House to make any decisions required on tackling the incoming hurricane Sandy, and then went to see the hurricane-hit states and assured the people and the governors of providing any help required by the people. Two governors of the hurricane-hit states endorsed President Obama. The president made the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) efficient to enable it to provide the hurricane-hit people with the assistance.

President Obama has introduced the Affordable Care Act popularly known as Obama Care that comes to effect in 2014 if everything goes smoothly. This Obama care insures the 45 million Americans that have no health insurance at no cost to them. The president is for the women’s rights to abortion, for the same-sex marriage, and for the welfare of the common folks.

Barack Obama is born of a European mother and an African father. His mother was an Irish American; his father was a Kenyan. His father was a student from Kenya studying in Hawaii when his father met his mother and got married and gave birth to him. His father left America for his native Kenya leaving behind the mother and ultimately divorcing her. She got married to an Indonesian student and then went to Indonesia to live taking her son Barack with her. Barack lived in Indonesia for six years before coming back to America where his white grandparents brought him up.  Barack Obama is a European-African American but not an African American neither a black American.

Challenger Mitt Romney is a rich man. He holds bank accounts in several countries including Switzerland. He has made investments in China and in other countries, too. He earns a lot from dividends received from his investment abroad, and pays about 14% tax on his earnings against the middle class people paying 30%. He boasted about being a successful businessman, and claimed that he was the most suitable person for serving the White House. He stood at the extreme right to secure the support of the conservatives including the tea-party movement for his nomination at the primary election. He went on saying that he would cut tax for the rich, cut the social security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and cut government spending to balance the budget and reduce the national debt. He made the Affordable Care Act popularly known as Obama Care the target and repeatedly said until the last moment that he would repeal the Act. He even told a group of his supporters at the closed-door meeting that he would not be able to convince 47% of the population no mater what he would do distancing from them. Later on, he attempted to correct his previous stand on this matter repeatedly saying that he would care for all, and he would be the president of 100% of the people.

After receiving the nomination from the Republican Party often dubbed as GOP, he, however, could not improve the opinion polls. Some of the GOP members were so nervous about the performances of Mitt Romney that one of them said in public that if Romney could not make headway in the presidential election even in the current so bad economic situation and high unemployment rate then it was better to dissolve the party and make a new one. Then, Romney gradually moved to the center to improve his public image.

Romney made another mistake choosing Paul Ryan as a teammate in his bid for the White House. Paul Ryan had behind him a controversial budget plan that foresaw to cut the everything made for the common folks including the Medicaid, Medicare, and social security, and tax-cuts for the high income people while making the middle class people to pay the same tax rate. Romney made the choice of Paul Ryan as the candidate for Vice-resident to please the conservatives of the GOP. The choice was certainly inauspicious as of the choice made by John McCain in 2008.

In order to improve the public support, Romney gradually moved to the center, and came to so close to President Obama at the first presidential debate that it was hard to find out where he stood concerning the economy. Romney said that he would not touch social security (pension after retirement), Medicaid (medical expenses for the needy), Medicare (medical support for the senior citizens), and would not increase the tax for the middle class Americans, and so on, and managed to win some increase in the support of the people for him. President Obama even questioned whether his challenger Romney was the same man of the time of nomination. In the second and third debate, Romney had had hard time to defend from the attacks made by President Obama.

Romney insisted that he would improve the economy, create millions of jobs: preciously 12 million jobs and make America prosperous. However, he did not say how he would do so. His statement of fact on the economy became so misleading that any person questioning of how Romney’s plan on creating jobs works did not believe him. His plans on economy have been only to attract voters to him. His position on women, same-sex marriage, immigration and so on became negative pushing them away from him. His stand on self-deportation pushed Latino voters to Barack Obama. With the word ‘self-deportation’, Latinos were so nervous that If Romney was to get elected then their lives would be hellish in America.

Romney said that he would cut the deficit by trillions of dollars and reduce the national debt but he could not give any hard figures to prove his theory provoking President Obama to attack him stating the Romney’s math did not work.

Romney repeatedly attacked President Obama for being weak and apologizing to the foreign nations and for bowing to the foreign head of state forgetting such things are the politeness rather than weakness, and apologizing does not make people small rather great. Romney so arrogantly said that he would regain the lost reputation of America by being hard to the foreign nations. Romney said that he would declare China a currency manipulator forgetting he was a tax manipulator, and stop China from stealing the American technology. Romney had been so arrogant when he visited the United Kingdom; he irritated his hosts questioning whether the host country would be able to manage the Olympic Game to be started soon.

Concerning the foreign policy, President Obama is for going soft and use the embargo instead of a war, and to mobilize the international community to tackle the problem of nuclear-power-developing countries, and to help the rebels fighting against the dictatorial regimes for democracy and the rule of law. He has been very polite to all the foreign nations, and has been for keeping every options open to the security of Israel. Consequently, almost all foreign nations except for Pakistan preferred Obama to Romney. Immediately after the re-election, some of the foreign head of states congratulated President Obama on his re-election.

President Obama received 97% of African America, 73% of Asian, 70% of Latino, and 39% of white, and overwhelming majority of women votes whereas Romney received the votes of majority of older whites indicating candidates wishing for getting elected to various offices needed to convince the people of different origins, as America has changed from the white majority to the growing majority of different ethnic groups particularly of Latinos.

The American election of 2012 has been the most expensive one this year. Both the candidates together spent $2.5 billions not counting the money spent by the third parties on ads in favor of the candidate of their choice. Most of the money spent on campaign ads was in the states called battleground or swing states where the voters might move either side of the candidates depending on the capacity of a candidate to convince them.

The American election is a game of chance. American people rich or otherwise bet their money on either of the two major candidates for the presidency. Some rich people or companies spend millions of dollars on ads in favor of the candidate of their choice or donate millions of dollars to the candidate of their choice to get him/her elected. When their candidate lost the election, they also lose the money they put in for electing the candidate of their choice.

The United States of America is made up of 50 states. Some states have the majority of the Democratic Party while others have the majority of the GOP. The states having the majority of democrats are called blue states, and that of the GOP red states, in between states are called swing states. Candidates do not worry much about their states but become very nervous of the swing states. So, they focus their attention mainly on the battleground states to win. If a candidate is successful to win some of the battleground states means the candidate wins the White House.

Four candidates have competed with each other for the presidency in this year. Two candidates: one of democrats and another of republicans come to light whereas voters don’t know other candidates until they get the ballot papers to vote. Such candidates are either independent or of a party of insignificant.

Most of the people in the world might think that the American voters directly elect the US President but it is only a half-truth. The 100 members of the senate plus 435 members of the House Representatives plus three more make the Electoral College of 538. Senate and the House of Representatives together are popularly known as the Congress. Every State elects two representatives to the Senate. Then, every State elects a certain number of representatives depending on the population to the House of Representatives. Thus, every State has a certain number of Electoral College. A presidential candidate receiving the majority of votes in a state collects all the Electoral College, and if s/he manages to garner 270 such Electoral College means s/he wins the White House for the four-year term. Every American could get elected to the presidency for the maximum of two terms.

President Obama received overwhelming number of electoral votes but received only 50% of the popular votes means the direct vote every voter cast. Romney lost with 206 electoral votes but receive 48% of the popular votes. President Obama received 332 electoral votes. Thus, President Obama got re-elected in 2012.

November 8, 2012