Barack Obama was named president on Tuesday night after a historically divisive election. FVHS seniors made it to the polls, and the morning after, expressed their thoughts about the election results.
Maxx Kominsky (’13) said, “I voted for Obama because Obama promised to end the war in Iraq by 2014, and he’s going to be bringing all our troops home. I thought Mitt Romney was going to win, but when they announced it on television last night, it meant the world to me.”
Obama captured swing states Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, New Hampshire, with only North Carolina going to Romney.
Ultimately he won with 303 electoral votes, compared to Mitt Romney’s 206.
In his victory speech Tuesday night, Obama declared, “Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual.”
Obama was backed by 60% of voters under age 30, a critical demographic for him since the 2008 election. Romney only won 36% of the youth vote.
Romney failed to win his home state of Massachusetts, as well as Michigan, where his father had been governor. “I so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction, but the nation chose another leader,” he said in his concession speech.
Jessica Chow (’13) had been hoping for a Romney victory. “I think [Romney] has been more fiscally sound than Obama has been,” she said. “I mean, Obama’s raised the deficit…and Romney’s plans just seem more logical to me.”
However, mistakes in the Republican campaign turned out to be crucial setbacks for Romney. “[Romney] screwed up with the 47% comment,” Samar Saad (’14) said.
When asked how she felt about Obama’s re-election, Jennifer Temores (’13) said, “I was very happy because I didn’t want Romney to get elected, because within social issues, that would have stripped a lot of people of their rights.”
Romney was often criticized for his inconsistencies. When he ran for the US Senate in 1994, he had been a pro-choice Republican. As governor of Massachusetts, he claimed to be a moderate. Most recently he called himself a “pro-life candidate” and vowed to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe v. Wade, further alienating female voters.
“Romney was just all over the place,” Samar Saad (’14) said. “He made it seem like it was a burden to put women in his administration, like he had to go out of his way and look through ‘binders of women’ to find qualified people.”
As Obama enters his second term with an increasing national debt, an 8% unemployment rate, and a looming fiscal cliff, Americans look forward to see what change he will bring. “I’m happy that he won,” Dennis Tran (’14) said. “He says that he’ll do better in the next four years…I’m hoping he will.”
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You go, girl.
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