Election

What happened in the U.S. election?  That was the question asked when the phone call came through early in the evening on election day from Adelaide, Australia, where it was 15 1/2 hours later than Pittsburgh.  Our friends were very concerned about the outcome of the Presidential vote, and the polls hadn't even closed in Pennsylvania.

"Don't worry," I told them.  "Obama will win more than 50% of the popular vote for the second time, and at least 313 electoral votes, and all he needs is 270."

They couldn't believe me.  How did I know?  How could I be so certain?  To me it was very simple.  The Republican Party had been moving to the right ever since the Tea Party got their first mention in the national media, and the American people had been moving to the left during the same time period.  The Democratic Party had recognized the demographic changes that were developing in the population and had emphasized  the social and financial issues that were important to that changing populace, and addressed those issues in ways that appealed to them.  Racial and ethnic minorities were becoming a larger percentage of the population, and especially the voting population, and would continue for decades in the future.  Women would also be a big factor, especially those women who saw Republicans as a threat to freedom of choice and health care.  This election was the last chance for the extreme right-wing to take over the government.  This would be the last chance for an election controlled by the old rich white guys

African-Americans had been approximately 13% of the population for decades, but even after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had outlawed discriminatory practices, they had not voted anywhere near the rate of whites.  This had been changing in recent national elections, and had reached a peak for Obama in 2008.  This year, for the first time, Hispanics would be over 10% of U.S. voters.  If both groups voted for Obama this year as they had in 2008, along with Asians, women, and young people, it would be difficult if not impossible for the Republicans to win the Presidency and increase their numbers in the Senate.  The only arm of the national government that Republicans had a lock on was the House of Representatives.  Due to gerrymandering of voting districts by state governments, nearly every Republican in the House was guaranteed to get re-elected.

Health care, education, immigration, income inequality, past tax cuts for the richest 1%, social justice, marriage equality, climate change, wars, corporate welfare--these are the issues the new voter majority wanted to have addressed.  And all the Republicans had were birthers, the NRA, more tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts in needed social programs, attacks on Planned Parenthood, and demonizing of the poor.

How could you not be certain that Obama and the Democrats would win?  Everything was in their favor, except the amount of money that billionaires gave to Republican political action committees.  And Romney had the rich, or as George Bush called them "my base".  He had a slow economy to blame on Obama, high unemployment, high debt, and Fox News.  Obama had the people and the multicultural future.

The extreme right-wing which controls the Republican Party threatens to destroy it as a viable political force for the foreseeable future in a country which will, in the near future, have a majority minority population.  Cosmetic changes in how the Republicans approach minorities will not be sufficient to hide the real right-wing agenda.  The only chance Republicans have to remain as a force in national politics is to divorce themselves of the extremists and make a serious attempt to re-form the Party around Jon Huntsman Jr and Gary Johnson, and perhaps pull in Chris Christie and some very blue-dog (conservative) Democrats.  That probably will not work, because the populace is becoming even more progressive, as is seen by the choice of Senators-Elect Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin who will be the first openly gay U.S. Senator, and the defeat of a number of high-profile Tea Party candidates for both the U.S. House and Senate.

With the House controlled by Republicans, there still may not be much that will be accomplished under Obama.  At least we will not see the massive damage that could have been caused if the Senate and Presidency had been lost.  And the future is bright.