AFP/Chicago
Glowing with triumph, President Barack Obama revived his old theme of hope yesterday, telling Americans “the best is yet to come” after defying dark economic omens with a decisive re-election win.
Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and their families are inundated with confetti at the president’s victory rally at McCormick Place in Chicago yesterday
The 44th US president and the first African American to claim the Oval Office was returned to power after a joyless election which appears to have deepened, rather than healed, his nation’s political divide.
“In this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back,” Obama, 51, said at a victory party in Chicago.
“I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope,” Obama said, striving for inspiration rarely shown in a campaign where the architect of hope of 2008 became a conventional, brawling politician.
“I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting,” Obama said.
With only Florida among the battleground states still to be declared, Obama had 303 electoral votes - well over the 270 needed to win the White House - and Republican challenger Mitt Romney formally conceded the race.
Obama had a slim lead in the national popular vote, leading Romney by 50% to 49% after drawing more than 56mn votes. Turnout appeared strong, though official figures had yet to be released.
As Obama’s victory was confirmed with wins in rustbelt Ohio and his spiritual political home in Iowa, large crowds suddenly materialised outside the White House, chanting “four more years” and “O-bama, O-bama.”
Republican nominee Romney, 65, deflated and exhausted, offered a classy tribute, as he consoled dejected supporters in Boston moments after phoning Obama to formally concede.
“This is a time of great challenges for America and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.” Romney said.
In a show of bipartisanship after a searing campaign, the president said he wanted to meet his vanquished foe to find common ground to move America forward.
Obama’s victory means that he will get the chance to embed his healthcare and Wall Street reforms deep into the fabric of American life - Romney had pledged one of his first acts would be the repeal of Obamacare.
The president may also get the chance to reshape the Supreme Court in his liberal image for a generation, a move that would shape policy on issues like abortion and gay rights.
The president will also look abroad as he builds his legacy, and will face an immediate challenge early in 2013 over whether to use military force to thwart Iran’s nuclear programme.
Obama’s win bucked history, as it came with the unemployment rate pegged at 7.9%, the highest level for a re-elected president in more than 70 years.
Remarkably, his coalition of Hispanic, black, and young voters turned out in similar numbers to those of his heady change-fuelled campaign in 2008, shocking Romney’s team and presenting a new American face to the world.
But once the euphoria fades, the president will face a tough task enacting his second term agenda after Republicans, who thwarted him repeatedly in his first mandate, retained control of the House of Representatives.
Democrats kept the Senate but fell short of the 60-vote super majority needed to sidestep minority blocking tactics.
Obama will soon face a showdown with Republicans on Capitol Hill over the so-called “fiscal cliff” - a combination of dramatic spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect if US lawmakers cannot cut a deal on the deficit.
It remains to be seen whether Republicans - who have opposed the president tooth and nail for the last four years - will be more conciliatory after Romney’s drubbing or double down to block any potential legacy projects.
The president paved the way to victory with a staunch defense of Democratic bastions in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, at which Romney had made a last-minute run when he saw more conventional paths to the White House blocked.
Obama also locked in swing states, including Virginia - where he became the first Democrat to win since 1964 four years ago - Nevada, Ohio, New Hampshire, Colorado and Iowa, crushing Romney’s slim hopes of a viable path to victory.
Romney could only wrestle Indiana and North Carolina from Obama’s 2008 map.
The win in Iowa will be especially sweet for Obama, as the heartland state nurtured his unlikely White House dreams way back in 2007. A tear rolled down his cheek as he held his last-ever campaign rally there late Monday.
His victory in Ohio represents a delayed repayment for his gutsy call in 2009 to mandate a federal bailout of the auto industry, on which one in eight jobs in the state depend. Romney had opposed the move.
Obama won with a fiercely negative campaign branding Romney - a multi-millionaire former corporate turnaround wizard - as indifferent to the woes of the middle class.
Exit polls showed that though only 39% of people believed that the economy was improving, around half of Americans blamed former Republican president George W Bush for the tenuous situation, and not Obama.
Obama’s victory was a complete vindication for a campaign team that had predicted a close but winnable election, despite the painful after-effects of the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s Great Depression.
He was also helped by Latino voters, whose strong support was crucial in the western desert state of Nevada and the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado.
Republicans had insisted right up to election day that Obama’s army, disaffected by busted expectations for his first term, would stay home, and had predicted instead a late Republican wave that would elevate Romney.
The president ran for re-election on a platform of offering a “fair shot” to the middle class, of fulfilling his pledge to end the war in Iraq, killing Osama bin Laden, and starting to build a clean energy economy.
The president may have been helped at the 11th hour when superstorm Sandy roared ashore, killing more than 100 Americans but giving Obama the chance to project leadership at the head of a multi-state disaster response.
Marijuana and gay marriage approved
Voters in Colorado and Washington approved the first statewide initiatives to legalise the recreational use of marijuana as Maine, Washington and Maryland became the first states to approve gay marriage by popular vote. “The voters have spoken, and we have to respect their will,” Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper said after Tuesday’s voting. “This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos too quickly.” Amendment 64 legalised marijuana for anyone over 21. It is to be sold at state-licensed stores that would pay taxes that were expected to generate millions of dollars in revenue for the state government. A similar measure to legalise the recreational use of marijuana failed to pass in neighbouring Oregon. Those results were among the most closely watched initiatives on the ballot while in another major issue, voters in Florida rejected a measure that would have severely limited the reach of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms.