07 November 2012, 02:29 PM IST
Stunning. In the end President Barack Obama's rainbow coalition – African-Americans, Hispanics, women and young white professionals – delivered victory with over 300 electoral college votes in a dramatic US presidential election.
Ohio, the bellwether state that had got 11 previous presidential elections dead right, got this one right too. The moment Ohio went to Obama, the race was over.
How did he do it? As I wrote yesterday in Obama's race to win, Obama had a lock on 263 electoral college votes. He needed 7 more with Ohio (18), Virginia (13) and Colorado (9) the likeliest bets. In the event, he won all three to take him to 303 with a few states, including Florida (29), still to declare their final results.
Mitt Romney's last-minute assault on Pennsylvania (20) failed as the state stayed with Obama. But Virginia (13) and Colorado (9), two conservative states expected to vote for Romney, delivered the knock-out punch to the Republican challenger.
A former governor of Massachusetts, Romney lost that state as well. His vice-presidential running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, could not stop the Obama juggernaut in his home state either.
Crucially too, the Democrats have retained control of the 100-seat Senate with 52 seats out of the 96 for which results have been declared.
Most gratifying for Obama is that – against Republican expectations – he won the popular vote 49.8% to 48.6%. Republican rightwingers had hoped that, even if Romney lost the White House on electoral college votes, winning the popular vote would "de-legitimise" Obama's second-term presidency. That didn't happen and Obama now has the added advantage of a Democrat-majority Senate.
This has important implications for the US and the rest of the world. With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, losing the Senate would have gridlocked the Obama presidency on, especially, economic policy.
Budget deadlines loom and Obama now has both the legislative and moral authority to stamp his policy doctrine on healthcare, the fisc and immigration.
On foreign policy, Iran, Syria and China are at the top of the president's agenda. His policy of incremental sanctions on Iran has restrained Israel from a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear installations. On Syria, Obama will need to be more interventionist to end the horrific civil war in that country.
Romney had pledged to declare China a "currency manipulator" if he took office. Obama's approach to China is more nuanced and Beijing will be pleased, as it declares its own new president tomorrow, that it will be dealing with a Democrat president.
An important slice of the rainbow coalition that sealed Obama's victory was gender: women voted overwhelmingly for Obama's softer, more compassionate vision of America's future where people of different ethnicities, religions, colour and gender live and work together.
A half-Kenyan, brought up by a single mother in Hawaii and Indonesia, Obama appealed to the 99%. Romney, a multimillionaire, with a wooden, remote manner, oozed privilege. He appealed to the 1%.
In the years to come, as America gets more plural, more coloured, as women ascend to positions of influence, the Obama legacy will inspire those who were not born into privilege, and who claim no entitlement except merit, hard work and integrity.
And the lessons for India? First up, this is how real democracy works. In over 200 years and 44 US presidents, only three have ever been dynasts (the Adams, Harrisons and Bushes – Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt were fifth cousins).
Only 6% of the US Senate is made up of dynasts. In India 28% of MPs across party lines are hereditary. Worse, 38% of all Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha are dynasts while 88% of Congress MPs under 40 are dynasts. Such feudalism retards merit, encourages sycophancy and rewards mediocrity.
The punishing primaries that Romney went through to claim the Republican nomination and the long Obama-Romney presidential campaign show how real merit emerges from competing ideologies. The US campaign carries an important message for Indian politicians: privilege, entitlement and dynasty are all living on borrowed time.
What will Obama's win mean for Indo-US relations? Obama's rhetoric over outsourcing, meant to pacify a domestic electorate battered by job losses, will cool down: he doesn't ever have to win another election again (America's limitation of two 4-year terms for the president is another sound principle India can emulate to avoid both geriatric and dynastic politicians.)
The Indo-US nuclear deal has its own dynamic and will now move ahead. Trade will be the big focus. We can expect an Obama presidential visit in 2014 when a new government and Prime Minister will take office in India.
The developing triangular relationship with China and the US, Washington's post-2014 strategy in Afghanistan and India's stand on Iran and Syria will inform diplomacy between the two countries.
Let me end with the last para of my edit page piece published in The Times of India on September 5, 2012 on Obama's prospects in the election we've just witnessed:
Beyond the cut-and-thrust of politics, Obama's main asset remains his homespun manner. For those who watched Obama and first lady Michelle at the first ever blues music festival in the White House earlier this year, Obama came across as a relaxed, confident man secure in his own skin. He cracked jokes with Mick Jagger, sang a few lines with blues legend B.B. King and didn't miss a beat.
If he handles the rest of this presidential campaign in the same sure-footed way, even Romney's white male demographic advantage may not be enough to stop Obama from recapturing the White House for four more years.
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