Obama Wins and Reaches out Hand to Romney: “Together We Face Great Challenges”

Barack thanks Joe Biden on stage. The strategy devised by campaign strategist Plouffe was decisive.

Barack Obama wins re-election, reaches out his hand to the defeated Mitt Romney and promises America that he’ll “act” to tackle the challenges posed by the economy, immigration and energy so as to “meet the hopes of an entire nation and unite it even more.”*

With more than 290 Electoral College votes, Barack Obama wins re-election at the end of a long night which saw him capture the majority of swing states. Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s attempt to beat the president in the popular vote was restricted only to gains in Indiana and North Carolina, as well as a neck-and-neck race in Florida, where the result has still not been called.** But Democrats managed to defend Virginia, a state with a high population of soldiers, and agricultural Midwest states from Iowa to Wisconsin, especially Ohio, where industrial and urban counties guaranteed a bagful of votes for Barack Obama. The election results show Democratic gains in the Senate in Indiana, Connecticut and Massachusetts. This allows Democrats to keep overall control in Washington, balancing out the Republican majority in the House.

For Republicans, this was a tough loss, mitigated only by the fact that they picked up more votes than four years ago, meaning they managed to compete with Democrats in the popular vote overall. But the winning strategy of David Plouffe, architect of the Democratic campaign, was to create a vast voting block based around Obama’s message: minorities, gays, women and military families allowed Democrats to strengthen the base of popular approval which accompanied the election four years ago. When Obama passed the quorum of 270 with the acquisition of Ohio, Romney waited over an hour before calling him, weighing all other options before delivering a speech to his supporters in Boston, in which he “wished […] the president well.” A few minutes later, Obama spoke to his supporters, promising to “work together with Romney,” thanking Joe Biden — “America’s happy warrior” — for his contribution to the campaign, and speaking passionately of his love for his wife and two daughters.

In the more political part of the speech, looking ahead he pledged to re-launch the policies of his first term, promising to continue in his “task of perfecting our union.” These words are reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln’s, a president that Obama has not stopped modeling himself on since he first began the race to the White House in February 2007.

*Editor’s note: the original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Florida was called for Barack Obama on November 10.