Obama 2.0
In the third-world and underdeveloped countries, when
elections throw up the wrong candidates, “vitamin M”, i.e. cash money in the
form of bank notes, is (correctly) blamed.
This money is almost always laundered, unaccounted
“black” money, which is disbursed by the candidates to poor voters through the
chiefs of each shanty town that regularly sprout in every city and village.
As most of the people are poor and illiterate, it is easy
to purchase their votes because quite often they don’t even know what they are
selling and how cheaply!
But not the US! Though the presidential elections burn
billions, I am sure that these dollars are not used to buy votes from poor
voters. First, some Americans might be relatively poor, particularly after
George W Bush (GWB) ended his terms (and financially finished his country).
However, no American suffers from abject poverty as the
really poor citizens of the Third World, and so is unlikely to sell their vote
for a few greenbacks.
Second, US voters are better educated and know that their
votes are priceless.
Having said that, I have always wondered how Americans
could elect GWB twice to the White House. Making a mistake once is
understandable, but making the same mistake twice is beyond comprehension!
So, I was worried about American voters electing Mitt
Romney in an unguarded moment. But, this time they did everything perfectly and
reelected a level-headed, well-educated person as their president.
The financial disaster that GWB handed to Obama may take
more than 20 years to turn around. Nobody, not even God, could fix it in four
years. So Romney’s tirade against Obama for “not doing enough for the US
economy and the spiraling national debt” was totally ill-placed.
I particularly liked Obama’s health care bill
(derogatorily and unjustifiably called Obamacare) but, due to some quirk of
mood, 2010 saw the House of Representatives fall under Republican leadership
and also reduced the Democrats’ majority in the Senate.
Otherwise, Obama’s performance would have been dazzling.
I feel that unless the House is brought back under Democrat control and 60+
democrats are elected to the Senate in 2014, the best that President Obama
could offer won’t be seen by the world.
The cornerstone of Romney’s plan was to reduce taxes for
the filthy rich. The argument was that by doing so, the rich would make
investments to create jobs. But, nobody remembered Warren Buffet lamenting his
being taxed at a far lower rate than his office staff and his call for less
coddling of the “super-rich” and raising their tax rates.
Obama retained support from key elements of his base to
win reelection. Though he lost some ground compared to 2008, he maintained wide
advantages among young people, women, minorities and among both the less
affluent and the well-educated.
I very much liked this sentence in Obama’s victory
speech: “You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming
weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders
of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together.”
And I am sure that Romney’s statement — “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. And so Ann and I join with you
to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation” — must have moistened many
eyes.
I think Obama has his head screwed on and will lead his
country (and the world) to the next stage of prosperity. I am sure that
everybody, like me, wishes him good luck.
K B Kale, Jakarta
First published in JP on 10/11/2012
