President Obama Re-Elected

Well, it's official. With the re-count of Florida finally in, President Obama will have another four years in the White House. On November 6, all of America tuned into their televisions as the votes trickled in and the projections started being made. For the first hour or two, Republicans felt pretty comfortable that Romney would win this election. At the time, he had many more electoral votes than Obama and was also leading in the popular vote. Democrats, however, were also extremely confident that President Obama would win this election. As the voting polls in the more populous states began to close, it became clear that Governor Romney would need to win almost all of the battleground states to pull out a victory in this election. Even at the sight of this large feat, Republicans remained confident and assured their viewers that Romney would pull out a "straight-line" victory. As 10:30 p.m. approached, none of the critical states could be accurately called as all of them were still too close to call. Just after 11:00 p.m., breaking news came in that President Obama would win Ohio. The Democratic Headquarters was beyond excited as this would almost surely secure President Obama four more years in the White House. The Republican Headquarters was quiet and tense as the audience stared at the television hoping for some sort of miracle for Governor Romney. That miracle would never come. President Obama would go on to win Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida giving him 332 electoral votes, many more than the 270 required for re-election. President Obama would also win the popular vote by almost 4 million votes. The last time than an incumbent lost re-election was George Bush Sr., so it was most definitely a stretch for Governor Romney to pull out a "W". Despite his loss, Romney clearly gave Obama a run for his money in what ended up being a pretty close election.

It's clear that America is changing, both demographically and in our mindset, and America wants a President that sees this change and views it as progress. I hope, and am optimistic in the idea that, without another election in his future, President Obama will be more apt to work with both parties and accomplish more of the goals that he had previously set out to do. To his defense, this is no easy feat. America is clearly divided, which I find to be very discouraging. I think that both parties need to make significant changes and an effort to work together. Some say that in order to have a chance at winning the election in 2016, Republicans need to completely rebrand their party and come to the middle on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Unfortunately, these are two of the issues that Republicans believe most strongly in and the likelihood of that happening seems to be very slim. In my opinion, America is at a very critical point in its history. I will be very interested to see what happens in these next four years. I hope that in 2016 we will see an America that truly has moved forward as President Obama has so coined the term.