As election dust settles, two SC political groups weigh in

The votes have been cast. The political ads have ceased. Barack Obama retained his presidency for another four-year term, with 303 electoral votes and approximately 50 percent of the nation’s vote.

Democrats maintained command in the Senate, holding 53 seats to Republicans’ 45, but Republicans held on to the House, holding with 234 seats compared to 193 Democratic seats.

While the election came down to the final days, especially in a few key battleground states – including Ohio, Florida (where results are still processing as of press time), and Wisconsin – the two-year process leading up to Nov. 6 cost billions of dollars in political ads, travel arrangements, speaking engagements, three live debates, and fundraising opportunities.

“Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference,” President Obama said during his victory speech Tuesday.

Residents of Sun City remain divided over the news. David Williams of Huntley Seniors for Progressive Action is ecstatic that the president was re-elected.

“It’s been sort of time consuming. I, for one, am kind of happy it’s all over. It kind of got to be very demanding, and there was just too much stuff surrounding this election. Not only were you getting ads six in a row on TV for different political offices, but I got at least 44 e-mails a day asking for donations from people as far away as California and Florida. It was really sort of an overkill,” he said.

Jim Nelson of the Huntley Tea Party said he “would have preferred anyone but Obama because I think he’s wrong for this country, period.

“I just don’t understand it. I hate to say the voters were ignorant, but they weren’t knowledgeable. It was either that or a personal self-interest,” Nelson said.

While neither Nelson nor Williams could choose one moment that defined this election, they agreed there were a “trend of things” that negatively affected both candidates.

“I think you saw a trend of things where Romney kept changing his opinions or statements on things, sounding like he was going to say whatever to win votes and wasn’t going to stick to any one voter,” Williams said.

Williams added that comments Romney made to George Stephanopoulous about the middle class – where he defined the middle class as making $250,000 or more a year – as one moment where “he created the image of being somewhat detached from mainstream America.

“The hurricane episode tended to favor Obama for the few days he acted as a leader, as a president,” Nelson said. “He got a lot of credit that the media played up to, but there should’ve been no single issue. If anything, the Republicans put their foot in their mouth on too many occasions. I think from that standpoint, the Republicans were their own worst enemy in the so-called ‘war on women.’”

On several occasions, including the three presidential debates and a number of political advertisements on TV, both candidates went on the aggressive – something Williams believes may have turned some voters off from heading to the polls on Election Day.

“I think people thought that if neither candidate could say anything good, then why vote for them. They probably had fatigue by the end of it,” Williams said.

Nelson, though, believes that negativity was not excessive, rather “it happens all the time.”

“For them to contradict each other or point out that they are wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Nelson said. “Claim they’re wrong and leave it up to the fact checkers to refute or agree with that claim. I don’t know, though, I think all signs point to a liberal vent on the side of the media. But…I don’t think the attacks really made a difference in the minds of the voters,” he said.

“I think Romney’s problem is that he was very broad and very general in making his comments. Especially those comments he made to George; he shouldn’t have answered with a direct number. Any number they give would’ve been taken and would’ve hit him over the head with it,” Nelson added.

In terms of advertising, both were divided.

“There wasn’t enough time really being spent on what the specific people were going to do. It was more just an ad saying so-and-so will do these bad things or has done these bad things, or ‘get rid of them, they’re ugly.’ It’s very much part of the process we’d like to see changed,” Williams said.

“There should be a distinct comparison between what kinds of ads run,” Nelson said. “We’ve always had negative ads, but what separated them was, Romney’s were mostly policy driven. They never called Obama greedy, radical, or extremist, unlike the other side.”

With the threat of a fiscal cliff looming and the slowly recovering economy lingering over the American people, Williams and Nelson both outlined the biggest challenge Obama will face in the coming months.

“His biggest challenge will be getting the House of Representatives to work cooperatively with a big administration and not be a firewall against progress. He’s going to have to address the economy, the improvements to the health care bill … people will be very, very interested in reducing the national debt and getting the economy going again,” Williams said.

“I think [Obama would] rather be king than the president, so we’re going to see more of those abuses of power and his use of executive power to put things through,” Nelson said.

Nelson expressed disappointment at the election not creating much of a power change in the White House or Congress and the idea of the Obama administration’s policies being referred to as “the new normal.”

“I keep hearing that phrase, and I hate it. That people will accept this as the new normal: the growing debt, a stagnant economy, our uncertainty feared. Those are not high prospects for our country. It doesn’t work,” Nelson said.

---