Political analysts and experts in Washington are evaluating how
President Barack Obama’s re-election might affect America’s future. Both
Democrats and Republicans are looking at why and how Obama won and Mitt
Romney lost, and also how they can move forward.
“For the United States of America, the best is yet to come!” said the
president to cheers and applause.
The morning after Obama’s victory speech, many Americans are debating
how to push his vision forward.
At the Brookings Institution, experts at a morning-after forum discussed
the overall meaning of Obama’s election win, and particularly what it
could mean for the Republican Party. Senior fellow Thomas Mann said the
election outcome shows that Republican lawmakers’ strategy of routinely
opposing the president’s policies failed in forcing Obama out of office.
He said Republicans on Capitol Hill gambled and lost.
“They played an all-out opposition party. ‘We are [against] everything.
We will stop it where we can. We will delay it otherwise, and if it
manages to pass, we will discredit it.’” said Mann.
Mann believes some Republican lawmakers are discussing an alternate
strategy in which they negotiate with the president, if Obama wants to
cooperate.
“At least a dozen Republicans, I think, will be unwilling to be whipped
by [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell into a filibuster opposition
strategy to the president. And it seems to me there will be openings for
the president as a consequence,” said Mann.
Brookings guest scholar Jonathan Rauch said he also sees a
too-conservative approach as one reason for Republican nominee Mitt
Romney’s defeat.
“I think Romney was done in by the fact that he could not get far enough
to the center credibly enough. He had to go too far right in the
primaries. And the reason for that is you have some fierce
constituencies in the Republican Party that do not want the party to
change,” said Rauch.
Rauch said that as he did in 2008, Obama won by appealing to a coalition
of Hispanics and other ethnic minorities, young voters and women. He
said Republicans did little to solicit votes from those growing segments
of the U.S. population.
“You
saw Hispanics increase their share, and you saw women really come out
for Obama. The social issues did not help the Republicans there. I think
it is now going to be clear to a lot of intelligent Republicans - like
[Senator] Lindsey Graham, who has already said this - that 2012 has to
be the last year when Republicans run as the party of angry white men.
That is just not enough votes any more,” said Rauch.
Meanwhile, the U.S. business community, which often clashes with Obama,
is setting its course for the next four years in response to the
priorities the president laid out in his victory speech.
“Reducing our deficit, reforming our tax code, fixing our immigration
system, freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We have got more work to
do," said Obama.
In a written statement congratulating Obama, the Business Roundtable
urged him to focus on deficit reduction and tax reform, and to ease
regulatory controls for businesses.
