Given 2nd term, Obama now facing new urgent task

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama pauses as he speaks at the elec­tion night party at McCormick Place Wednes­day in Chicago. Obama defeated Repub­li­can chal­lenger for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Car­olyn Kaster)

NANCY BENAC

NEDRA PICKLER

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Pres­i­dent Barack Obama faces a new urgent task now that he has a sec­ond term, work­ing with a status-quo Con­gress to address an impend­ing finan­cial cri­sis that econ­o­mists say could send the coun­try back into recession.

“You made your voice heard,” Obama said in his accep­tance speech, sig­nal­ing that he believes the bulk of the coun­try is behind his poli­cies. It’s a stick­ing point for House Repub­li­cans, sure to balk at that.

The same vot­ers who gave Obama four more years in office also elected a divided Con­gress, stick­ing with the dynamic that has made it so hard for the pres­i­dent to advance his agenda. Democ­rats retained con­trol of the Sen­ate; Repub­li­cans kept their House majority.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke of a dual man­date. “If there is a man­date, it is a man­date for both par­ties to find com­mon ground and take steps together to help our econ­omy grow and cre­ate jobs,” he said.

Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell of Ken­tucky had a more harsh assessment.

“The vot­ers have not endorsed the fail­ures or excesses of the president’s first term,” McConnell said. “They have sim­ply given him more time to fin­ish the job they asked him to do together” with a bal­anced Congress.

Obama’s more nar­row vic­tory was noth­ing like the jubi­lant cel­e­bra­tion in 2008, when his hope-and-change elec­tion as the nation’s first black pres­i­dent cap­ti­vated the world. This time, Obama ground it out with a stay-the-course pitch that essen­tially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Con­gress will be more accom­mo­dat­ing than in the past.

The most press­ing chal­lenges imme­di­ately ahead for the 44th pres­i­dent are all too famil­iar: an econ­omy still baby-stepping its way toward full health; 23 mil­lion peo­ple out of work or in search of bet­ter jobs; civil war in Syria; a men­ac­ing stand­off over Iran’s nuclear program.

Sharp dif­fer­ences with Repub­li­cans in Con­gress on taxes, spend­ing, deficit reduc­tion, immi­gra­tion and more await. While Repub­li­cans con­trol the House, Democ­rats have at least 53 votes in the Sen­ate and Repub­li­cans 45. One newly elected inde­pen­dent isn’t say­ing which party he’ll side with, and North Dakota’s race not yet called.

Votes also were being counted Wednes­day in the Mon­tana and Wash­ing­ton guber­na­to­r­ial races.

Obama’s list of promises to keep includes many holdovers he was unable to deliver on in his first term, such as rolling back tax cuts for upper-income peo­ple, over­haul­ing immi­gra­tion pol­icy and reduc­ing fed­eral deficits. Six in 10 vot­ers said in exit polls that taxes should be increased, and nearly half of vot­ers said taxes should be increased on incomes over $250,000, as Obama has called for.

“It’s very clear from the exit polling that a major­ity of Amer­i­cans rec­og­nize that we need to share respon­si­bil­ity for reduc­ing the deficit,” Mary­land Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Demo­c­rat on the House Bud­get Com­mit­tee, told CNN. “That means ask­ing higher-income earn­ers to con­tribute more to reduc­ing the deficit.”

But Sara Tay­lor Fagen, who served as polit­i­cal direc­tor in Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s sec­ond term, warned the cur­rent White House to pay heed to the closely divided elec­torate, a les­son her party learned after 2004. With more than 90 per­cent of precincts report­ing, the pop­u­lar vote went 50 per­cent for Obama to 48.4 per­cent for Romney,

“It’ll be inter­est­ing if the Obama team mis­in­ter­prets the size of their vic­tory,” Fagen said. “I think if you look back at his­tory, we pushed Social Secu­rity and the Con­gress wasn’t ready for that and wasn’t going to do it. And had Pres­i­dent Bush gone after immi­gra­tion, we may be sit­ting in a very dif­fer­ent posi­tion as a party.”

Obama pre­dicted in the wan­ing days of the cam­paign that his vic­tory would moti­vate Repub­li­cans to make a deal on immi­gra­tion pol­icy next year to make up for hav­ing “so alien­ated the fastest-growing demo­graphic group in the coun­try, the Latino community.”

For­mer Mis­sis­sippi Gov. Haley Bar­bour agreed that a les­son of 2012 is for his Repub­li­can Party to change the party’s approach on immigration.

“Repub­li­cans say, ‘We don’t want to reward peo­ple for break­ing the law,’” Bar­bour told CBS. “The way we need to look at it is, how are we going to grow the Amer­i­can econ­omy and where does our immi­gra­tion pol­icy fit into that?”

Even before Obama gets to his sec­ond inau­gural on Jan. 20, he must deal with the threat­ened “fis­cal cliff.” A com­bi­na­tion of auto­matic tax increases and steep across-the-board spend­ing cuts are set to take effect in Jan­u­ary if Wash­ing­ton doesn’t quickly reach a bud­get deal. Experts have warned that the econ­omy could tip back into reces­sion with­out an agreement.

Newly elected Democ­rats sig­naled they want com­pro­mise to avoid the fis­cal cliff.

Sen.-elect Tim Kaine, a for­mer Vir­ginia gov­er­nor who defeated Repub­li­can George Allen, said on NBC’s “Today” show that vot­ers sent a mes­sage they want “coop­er­a­tive gov­ern­ment.” But he also says the elec­tion results show that the pub­lic doesn’t want “all the levers in one party’s hands” on Capi­tol Hill.

From Mass­a­chu­setts, Eliz­a­beth War­ren said on “CBS This Morn­ing” that those who voted for her oppo­nent, Repub­li­can Sen. Scott Brown, expressed a desire for law­mak­ers to work together. She says: “I heard that loud and clear.”

Obama repeated his cam­paign slo­gan of mov­ing “for­ward” repeat­edly in a vic­tory speech early Wednes­day in his home­town of Chicago.

“We will dis­agree, some­times fiercely, about how to get there,” he said. “As it has for more than two cen­turies, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path. By itself, the recog­ni­tion that we have com­mon hopes and dreams won’t end all the grid­lock, or solve all our prob­lems, or sub­sti­tute for the painstak­ing work of build­ing con­sen­sus, and mak­ing the dif­fi­cult com­pro­mises needed to move this coun­try for­ward. But that com­mon bond is where we must begin.”

For­mer Obama adviser Anita Dunn told “CBS This Morn­ing” that the pres­i­dent made it clear in his accep­tance speech that he will be reach­ing out, and she warned GOP House lead­ers, rep­re­sent­ing Ohio, Vir­ginia and Wis­con­sin, to keep in mind that their vot­ers also wanted to keep Obama.

“Clearly there’s a lot of momen­tum and a lot of incen­tive for peo­ple to work together to really find answers to the chal­lenges,” she said.

The van­quished Repub­li­can, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney, tried to set a more con­cil­ia­tory tone on the way off the stage.

“At a time like this, we can’t risk par­ti­san bick­er­ing,” Rom­ney said after a cam­paign filled with it. “Our lead­ers have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work.”

Obama won at least 303 elec­toral votes to 206 for Rom­ney, with 270 needed for vic­tory, and had a near-sweep of the nine most hotly con­tested states.

Obama’s re-election means his sig­na­ture health care over­haul will endure, as will the Wall Street over­haul enacted after the eco­nomic melt­down. The draw­down of troops in Afghanistan will con­tinue apace. With an aging ros­ter of jus­tices, the pres­i­dent prob­a­bly will have at least one more nom­i­na­tion to the Supreme Court.

A sec­ond term is sure to pro­duce turnover in his Cab­i­net. Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Tim­o­thy Gei­th­ner has made it clear he wants to leave at the end of Obama’s first term but is expected to remain in the post until a suc­ces­sor is con­firmed. Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, Obama’s rival for the pres­i­dency four years ago, is ready to leave. Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta isn’t expected to stay on.

Some Amer­i­cans were hope­ful for progress in Obama’s sec­ond term.

“He may not have done a great job in my mind but I kinda trust him,” Jerry Shul said Wednes­day morn­ing in New York’s Times Square. “And I feel like he’s gonna keep try­ing and I feel like when peo­ple keep try­ing in you favor things work out. I have faith in him, I have faith he will get with the Repub­li­cans and get some­thing done.”

Else­where on the bal­lot, vot­ers in Maine and Mary­land became the first to approve same-sex mar­riage by pop­u­lar vote while Wash­ing­ton state and Col­orado legal­ized recre­ational use of marijuana.

Obama claimed at least seven of the nine swing states, most notably Ohio, seen as the big prize. He also pre­vailed in Iowa, New Hamp­shire, Col­orado, Nevada, Vir­ginia and Wis­con­sin. Rom­ney got North Carolina.

Florida was too close to call Wednes­day morn­ing. The unof­fi­cial count had Obama with a 46,000-vote lead, but Florida his­tor­i­cally has left as many as 5 per­cent of its votes uncounted until after Elec­tion Day.

Over­all, Obama won 25 states and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. Rom­ney won 24 states.

It was a more mea­sured vic­tory than four years ago, when Obama claimed 365 elec­toral votes to Ari­zona Sen. John McCain’s 173, and won 53 per­cent of the pop­u­lar vote.

Pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures indi­cate fewer peo­ple par­tic­i­pated this time. Asso­ci­ated Press fig­ures showed that about 118 mil­lion peo­ple had voted in the White House race, but that num­ber will rise as more votes are counted. In 2008, 131 mil­lion peo­ple voted, accord­ing to the Fed­eral Elec­tion Commission.

Posted by AP News on Nov 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.