Obama wins! Historic second term for the president

The 2012 presidential election proves 2008 was not a fluke nor an accident. The 2012 election demonstrates the peril of all-White “dream teams” with mostly White door knockers in the field. When will the Republicans accept “representative democracy” on ballots and in the field as well as in voting booths?

It was interesting to watch the red-faced and frivolous TV pundits scramble to understand, whether Fox News, CNN, MSNBC or the rest. The Republicans mixed up a special batch of snake-oil tonic in the first week of November 2008, after President Barack Obama won his first term. They should have mixed up a batch of cooperation and compromise; that is the American Way of checks and balances.

The attempt by Karl Rove to make it appear we had another Florida in both Florida and Ohio exposed the depths of deceit and deception some Republicans attempted. But that is something for another time and another day.

Today is about the tremendous accomplishment of Barack Obama. We personally offer our congratulations to him and his wife and daughters.

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With race now set aside, the key issue for 2012 will be

which party advocates education and economic

growth minority communities desperately need

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At one point late Tuesday and early Wednesday, Romney led in the popular vote. Florida, still counting its votes as I write, will not be center stage. It’s over (as I write, the president is now four million votes ahead in the popular vote). Had that held, it would have been the fourth time in U.S. history.

Doesn’t matter. The Electoral College makes sure every state counts, not just those with the most voters. Why? Inclusion.

Two good men fought hard. Their surrogates did the heavy-stone throwing. May future campaigns discuss issues more.

Regardless of speculation about what President Obama’s strategies will be to get this country up and running and dealing with the many issues, American voters made clear they want his leadership and they want Republicans and the far right to understand they risk going the way of the Whig Party.

The heralded Romney strategists and tacticians were defeated at the polls by their lack of understanding race and inclusion. Republicans scared voters to switch to Obama because of the perception that Romney favored undocumented Hispanics “self-deporting,” ending Medicare in 10 years and letting rape victims be victims. No longer will either party win with strategies that exclude and anger voters of color and those who are retired.

Hispanics: 75 percent for Barack Obama. African Americans: 98 percent for Obama. Groups by gender, age, and race: more than 50 percent for Obama.

Will Republicans finally get the message that good ol’ White boys can no longer make decisions without including the rest of America? My 2008 book’s title says it all: A Seat for Everyone:  The Freedom Guide that explores a vision for America, diversity, education, jobs, housing, and a much better understanding of the political networks that govern and enable the institutions of democracy.

There will clearly be a battle within the Republican Party to determine who will now lead the party. Will it be the petty and biased 2012 Republican candidates and political aspirants? Or will they also include rising candidates of color, be they Black, brown or yellow?

With race now set aside, the key issue for 2012 will be which party advocates education and economic growth minority communities desperately need. Whoever denies them growth on the basis that our economy is too big and wrong will lose. The winning ticket: whoever outlines an economy that generates jobs and prosperity, including in energy. Our hope and prayer is that President Obama brings the latter to communities of color during the next four years.

And lets not forget the young. They realize the ol’ crazy racial animus of ol’ Dixie is a losing strategy. Over the last 44 years, Dixiecrats have taken off their donkey ears and put on the tails and ears of the big elephant.

Minnesotans are proud that it was the late partner of Nellie Stone Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, who sharpened that movement in his 1948 Democratic Party Convention speech in Philadelphia, near the Liberty Bell, in one of the great speeches to put front and center the issue of equality and unity in America. On November 6, the American voters entrusted that mantle to Barack Obama. We hope and pray, as Americans, that Democrats and Republicans alike embrace that Humphrey standard to make this a better nation through inclusion.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.”

Stay tuned.

Ron Edwards hosts “Black Focus” on Channel 17, MTN-TV, Sundays, 5-6 pm, and hosts Blog Talk Radio’s “Black Focus V” on Sundays, 3-3:30 pm and Thursdays, 7-8:30 pm, providing coverage about Black Minnesota. Order his books at www.BeaconOnTheHill.com. Hear his readings and read his columns, blog, and solution papers for community planning and development, at www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. Columns are archived at www.theminneapolisstory.com/tocarchives.htm.