AFTER a fierce battle in the Presidential Election, American voters have made their choice — four more years for President Barack Obama after he defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney in both the electoral and popular votes.
The President has been re-elected after going over the top of the required absolute majority (magic number 270) of the electoral vote: 303-206. More Americans voted for him as well. As of Thursday afternoon, the popular vote count for Obama was at 50.4 percent (60,367,866 votes), versus Romney’s 48.1 percent (57,572,736 votes). As of press time, Romney has reportedly conceded. Florida’s 29 electoral vote would then give Obama a 332 absolute majority vote.
Our undecided voters in the Balitang America Town Hall Debate: Obama vs Romney got it right. After listening to the debate between Democratic spokesperson Loida Nicolas Lewis and Republican spokesperson Nimfa Gamez, 57 percent of them said they would vote for the re-election of President Obama.
However, Republican challenger Mitt Romney captured the lead in the online poll held onwww.balitangamerica.tv. Sixty-one percent of those who watched the debate said they would vote for Gov. Romney, while 31 percent said they would support President Obama.
This online poll result has been consistent with the previous Isyu Ngayon poll results on who won the three debates — a big majority among our Fil-Am viewers voted in favor of Gov. Romney. (As disclosed, Balitang America’s polls are not scientific and should not be interpreted in the same way as results of scientific pollsters)
After the election, I interviewed spokerspersons Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Nimfa Gamez for the second time regarding Obama’s victory and Romney’s loss.
Lewis said with Obama’s re-election, jobs, immigration, the debt ceiling and social security reforms are what Americans should expect during his next four years in office. “The entire United States can expect the passage of the American Jobs Act [that] the Republican Congress refused to pass. This will give more jobs to Americans,” said Lewis.
Lewis also said we should expect the passage of the much anticipated immigration reform during the coming administration.
Lewis also pointed out that there is still much to be done, and so much is expected from Obama to tackle the fiscal cliff that the country is facing. She also expressed optimism that Obama will put a fix to the government’s bleeding Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs.
When I asked Health Care entrepreneur Nimfa Gamez where the Romney campaign could have fallen short, Gamez said: “I don’t think na may pagkukulang siyang malaki. He (Romney) remained a gentleman all througout the campaign. He did not trade insults though he was being called names like ‘Romnesia’… I think [it’s because] they were not able to go against the barrage of negative ad campaigns towards him.”
The slim margin of Pres. Obama over Gov. Romney in popular votes just proves how divided the electorate has been. And with the balance of power unchanged among our lawmakers — the Republicans still dominate the House of Representatives and the Democrats are still in control of the Senate — many fear that the next four years may just prove to be a repeat of the gridlock that marked the previous four years.
Could bipartisan agreement be possible? Could Obama and Congress work together to solve the nation’s urgent problems?
“I think the men and women in the Congress and Senate, this time, will cooperate with President Obama more,” said Gamez.
“During the campaign, the politicians put a lot of pressure on us voters. This time, we the people, should put more pressure on legislators to pass the bills to help the country.”
But Lewis warned that some of the GOP’s ultra-conservative views will render the party irrelevant. “The strong message to the Tea Party is that if you are going to be very extreme, you will be defeated. So if the extreme Republicans in the Lower House prevent the passage of the Americans Jobs Act and the comprehensive immigration reform, they better watch out in 2014, they can be displaced.”
It is interesting to note how the American voters did not elect many Tea Party candidates advocating extreme views, including our own kababayan, Dr. Marisha Agana, who ran for Congress in the State of Ohio. Agana likened President Obama to Hitler.
Gamez said that despite our political differences, we should be united as a community moving forward. “We should represent ourselves as one solid electoral bloc.”
“I also wanted to remind the Fil-Am community on upholding and preserving our culture and tradition so we can pass this on to our children, because this is the only way we can gain respect of the world and the way to catch the attention of our legislators towards our issues and problems,” Gamez added.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
