The Economist: Obama's Win Raises Questions for Republicans!

A sharply divided America has given President Barack Obama a second term: an extraordinary result, given economic fundamentals that should have doomed the incumbent, according to the usual rules of electoral gravity. Scotching fears of drawn out legal wrangling over disputed ballots in dead heat races, the result became clear soon after the polls closed on the west coast. After billions of dollars in campaign spending, many thousands of vicious attack ads and unprecedented interventions by deep pocketed outside groups, the balance of power looked remarkably to how it did a day before. Mr Obama is on course to lose just two states that he had taken in 2008, Indiana and North Carolina. Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives, and the Democrats kept hold of the Senate. Mr Obama told supporters in Chicago, that he had heard the call of voters to move beyond the partisan gridlock in Washington. He went out of his way to reach out to Republicans, with whom he must strike a deal to avoid the automatic spending cuts and tax rises that threaten to push America off a so called fiscal cliff in the new year. He even promised to meet with Mitt Romney to discuss ideas for fixing the economy. In a nod to the speech that made his name, he vowed: "We remain more than a collection of red and blue states, we are and will forever remain the United States." On the other side of the aisle, the questions now facing Republicans could hardly be bigger. A comforting interpretation of their defeat would point to Mr Romney's showing in the popular vote, in which he is on course to lag Mr Obama by only a percentage point or two. It could be argued that this near draw shows that millions of American voters are disappointed with the president and were ready to embrace a Republican alternative. This reassuring narrative would blame Mr Romney and top aides for errors of campaign strategy, such as their failure to effectively combat the Obama campaign's summertime effort to define the Republican nominee as a heartless plutocrat.