US Elections: Obama in tears

By Vivian E. Asedri

The Republican Party’s bad science, shifting demographics and the trust factor gave him victory

Who says men do not cry? Even the most powerful man in the world militarily – United States President Barack H. Obama – broke down in tears on Wednesday, November 7, when addressing his campaign staff at campaign headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. The scene was perhaps the most spectacular moment of the 2012 U.S. presidential elections in which Obama trounced his Republican Party rival and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with 322 to 206 electoral votes.

As Romney and his party start the soul-searching process for the huge loss and nurse their wounds, it has become evident that three major factors propelled Obama to victory: science, demographics and trust.

Science

Unfortunately for Mitt Romney, careless, virulent and degrading utterances by key Republican Party legislatures that women could not get pregnant if they were raped was a significant turn-off for droves of American women. First was the August 2012 comment by the United States House of Representative for Missouri, Todd Akin that women victims of what he termed “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant from the rape, and that “female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” I am clueless on any scientific basis for such arguments!

Then another Republican Party legislator and candidate also supported by the right-wing “Tea Party” movement and Evangelical Christians, Senator Richard Mourdock of Indiana said at a rally that pregnancy resulting from rape was “something God intended.” Some even proposed that women who abort pregnancies resulting from rape should be jailed.

The lackluster criticism from the party and Mitt Romney himself of such degrading utterances proved, to many women, that the Republican Party condoned the practice of raping women. And to add fuel to the fire, on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney made it abundantly clear that if elected president, he would abolish government funding to the Planned Parenthood, an organisation on which about 4 million women depend for cancer screening, prenatal healthcare and contraception needs.

Since historically, more women vote than men in America, the women registered their anger at the ballot box by voting 54 percent for Obama who strongly opposed the Republican views on rape, and just 44 percent women voted for Romney.

Demographics

Current demographic set-up abuts science to deny Romney victory. Available election statistics show that 69 percent of 18-29 year old voters do not only believe in science and technology, and disagree with conservative sections of the Republican Party’s continued denial of the global warming effects but also associate themselves with Obama’s progressive policies. Besides, whereas the Republican Party’s biggest voting bloc remains older and conservative whites, minority groups such as African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans were galvanised by the concerted and deliberate schemes by Republican Party controlled State legislatures in critical swing states of Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire to enact voter suppression laws to eliminate or cut down early voting days. For instance, in Florida they tried to abolish early voting on the Sunday before the Election Day because African American, Hispanic and Asian American churches hire buses to ferry people after church service to vote, because some of these voters are poor, elderly or disabled and cannot afford transport on Election Day. No wonder that nationally 93 percent African Americans, 71 percent Hispanics and 73 Asian Americans voted for Obama.

Trust Factor

Despite the slow economic recovery with unemployment dropping from 11 percent when Obama took over in 2009 to 7.9 percent today, exit polls by CNN.Com and MSNBC.Com indicated that majority of voters trusted President Obama to continue with the economic recovery instead of Romney, who was bent on giving tax breaks to the rich, in sharp contrast to Obama who opts for tax breaks to poor Americans who earn less than US$250,000 a year. Perhaps the American voters were guided by the idiom that “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”

So when Obama said amid tears to his campaign staff, “I’m really proud of you. What you guys accomplished will go on in the annals of history”, will it be the performance of his campaign staff or Obama crying that will replay itself and get prominence for posterity?

Vivian Asedri, Medical Information Technologist, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. dikumvi@gmail.com