Can Obama do it this time?
8 Nov 2012 6:33 AM IST
As Barack Obama won the presidential polls, it did not help put a salve on the metaphorical body blows that the majority of Americans have withstood in the past five years or so. In 2008 Obama had a catch-all slogan ‘Yes, We Can!’ That kind of phraseology was about hope, desire and a common destiny. He had won 365 electoral votes of the 548 that constitute the US electoral college. This time at last count, he had 303.
But it could not hide the deep cleavage in the American electorate. Obama won about 50 per cent of the popular votes, while his contender of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney about 48.5 per cent. This reflected the even division amongst the people about how the country should be governed. It also reflected a deep partisan cleft, caught well in the two party system. Obama also received a low per centage of votes among the majority white community that together is about 74 per cent of the total electorate. That showed a large section of the country is still racially divided.
But, the American media considers Obama’s win as the victory of the ‘left’ faction of the Democratic Party. They also find in the man a champion of the much beleaguered middle class of the country. Romney was hugely funded by the entrepreneurial rich people of the country. But Obama was not left out either. Close to polling day, he ratcheted up his takings to one billion dollars. Of course, those bills will be presented to him later, but for now he has been voted to power as a vindication of health-care reform; and the bridling of the once immensely powerful insurance companies. The people of the USA have obviously approved his brief ‘nationalisation’ of the automobile companies like General Motors, and insurance companies like AIG.
On Tuesday night, trying to catch the popular mood and where Obama stood, the recession battered Washington Post wrote, that in 2008, the first black president of the country had symbolised immense ‘hope,’ but last night he represented the ‘limits of hope.’
Obama still called the US army the best in the world; the American enterprise best again; the people of the USA the richest. These hubristic statements may sound so false to the rest of the world, to Americans this was manna from heaven. Bruised and in the agony of relative poverty, the Americans needed one day of redemption. Obama’s uplifting acceptance speech, that the CNN, called ‘vintage Obama,’ talked about the road ahead. He naturally talked of bipartisanship; it seemed facetious on the face the deep divisions that even his own elections showed.
There was a talk of the Republican Party’s ultra-right ‘Tea Party’ movement by commentators on television, but there wasn’t a single, reference to the genuine left ‘Occupy’ movement.
But it could not hide the deep cleavage in the American electorate. Obama won about 50 per cent of the popular votes, while his contender of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney about 48.5 per cent. This reflected the even division amongst the people about how the country should be governed. It also reflected a deep partisan cleft, caught well in the two party system. Obama also received a low per centage of votes among the majority white community that together is about 74 per cent of the total electorate. That showed a large section of the country is still racially divided.
But, the American media considers Obama’s win as the victory of the ‘left’ faction of the Democratic Party. They also find in the man a champion of the much beleaguered middle class of the country. Romney was hugely funded by the entrepreneurial rich people of the country. But Obama was not left out either. Close to polling day, he ratcheted up his takings to one billion dollars. Of course, those bills will be presented to him later, but for now he has been voted to power as a vindication of health-care reform; and the bridling of the once immensely powerful insurance companies. The people of the USA have obviously approved his brief ‘nationalisation’ of the automobile companies like General Motors, and insurance companies like AIG.
On Tuesday night, trying to catch the popular mood and where Obama stood, the recession battered Washington Post wrote, that in 2008, the first black president of the country had symbolised immense ‘hope,’ but last night he represented the ‘limits of hope.’
Obama still called the US army the best in the world; the American enterprise best again; the people of the USA the richest. These hubristic statements may sound so false to the rest of the world, to Americans this was manna from heaven. Bruised and in the agony of relative poverty, the Americans needed one day of redemption. Obama’s uplifting acceptance speech, that the CNN, called ‘vintage Obama,’ talked about the road ahead. He naturally talked of bipartisanship; it seemed facetious on the face the deep divisions that even his own elections showed.
There was a talk of the Republican Party’s ultra-right ‘Tea Party’ movement by commentators on television, but there wasn’t a single, reference to the genuine left ‘Occupy’ movement.
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