Obama, the winner of 349 electoral votes, including Virgina, Florida, and Ohio, was the estimated president as of last night at 8:01pm PST after the West Coast polls closed.
Both candidates had a tough campaign, and there were times when both looked like they could come out on top. McCain stated he would put his "Country First" something the citizens needed to hear, while Obama won support through by contrasting himself with the current office. In his victory speech, Obama thanked his organizational teams, campaign volunteers and all his supporters. But those people are not the only reason he won.
For starters, Obama focused on a core theme of change. Americans everywhere are struggling and he gained support by offering them hope. Obama constantly slammed McCain for being "just more of the same", when the country really needs different approachs.
Second, Obama made a great decision in not taking public funds, allowing him to expand past the maximum ammount set, and raise as much money as possible. The money helped get his ideas published, television adds, and more volunteers.
Thirdly, (something we didn't exactly touch on in class) was that Obama had a difficult fight in the primaries against Senator Clinton. Unlike McCain, Obama had to start the race, with "full arms a-blazing" and was on the defence and offense from the get go. I'm not sure how much this greatly effected the outcome last night, but it's still something to consider.
Any other opinions? Is there something I missed?
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9 comments:
Although Obama had a lot of supporters that helped him win the campaign, an important reason that he won I think was McCain’s mistakes. One of McCain’s mistakes that I think hindered his chances to become the next President of the United States was his choice of VP. I think Sarah Palin was a big mistake that McCain made in his campaign. Her embarrassing failures at interviews hurt him a lot. Not to mention the little “shopping” fiasco when she spent $150,000 on a new wardrobe that pissed off a lot of Republican donators who may of changed their votes out of rage. Another mistake that McCain made that hurt his chances of becoming the next President of the United States in my mind was the third debate when he put women’s health in quotation marks. Although, he was trying to make a point that some women use their health as a reason to get an abortion, to me it sounded as if he did not care about women’s health. I think this could have possibly turned off some undecided women voters and made them on toward Obama.
I think it's inevitable that the candidate's make poor decisions on their journey to become the president. Although both candidates did make mistakes,
American citizens were more forgiving towards Obama. For example, the Reverand issue could have become MAJOR and ruined his chances of winning, but people
disregarded it after some time and it blew over. I think that Americans were more forgiving of Obama's mistakes during the campaing because of his character.
On television and through his speeches Obama has painted a picture of himself of being a family man, a genuinely nice guy, and a leader. Unlike McCain, people are able to relate to Obama,
he's a father of two girls, was raised by a single mom and his grandparents, and a man who made a life for himself on his own. Since people feel a connection with Obama as a person,
people quickly forgive Obama because he seems like a friend of ours so we don't want to dwell on his mistakes but instead give him the benefit of the doubt..unlike how people deal with McCain and his VP choice.
People never got over it, instead it just became a magnified issue that people poked fun at. People feel a connection with Obama's campaign, because of his attitude/personality as well as the fact that grassroots politics was a major part of his campaign.
I'm thrilled by the outcome of this election and happy to see that the enthusiasm Obama brought out in the American people carried over into the polls. Its encouraging to see that such positive motifs as those presented by Obama's campaign really encouraged people to act. The "Obamania" is real, its not just something people participated in because it was the "in" thing to do. The people really seemed to believe in Obama and his message and they acted on those beliefs. I feel that in this manner, Americans were more united than they have been in a long time.
In terms of his campaign, I feel that Obama continued a theme of positivity throughout. While McCain and Palin went so far as to accuse him of consorting with terrorists, he remained focused on his values and his hopes for the nation. The only negativity he seemed to use was in comparing McCain to Bush, and even this kept the electorate focused on the task at hand. He did not distract voters with petty issues which seemed more fitting for gossip magazines, instead he kept pounding his main points and beliefs home--his concepts of hope and change. In this manner, Americans would continually associate these things with him, from his own mouth. The electorate remained focused on the issues at hand and the problems with government he presented. I think that because Obama chose to stay above the continual mudslinging, and not really participate in it himself, he proved the better candidate. The only things we really seemed to hear from McCain were the problems with Obama's plan and Obama himself, he did not have the same focus or any reoccurring theme/plan that he could continually present to Americans to represent where the stands and what he believes. Because of this, McCain appeared more eccentric in his policies and beliefs--they remained unclear due to his lack of focus on them. In comparison to Obama, McCain therefore seemed like the weaker candidate, without a base to refer back to, he simply seemed to drift along in the campaign trail. Hopefully, Obama will continue this positivity because I think it has a good effect on Americans. Indeed, they seem to respond well to it, with the overwhelming numbers at the polls.
i think that the biggest reason why obama won was because of the terrible mishaps of the bush admin. because people associated his presidency with the republican party, the people also associated mccain with bush, even though they a different on many levels. this is also seen as many democrats actually beat out sitting republicans in the house and the senate. it was because of this lack of faith in the republican party that mccain was almost doomed from the start.
sure campaigning did make a difference, but that many people were already pre-set and almost had already pre-determined (maybe unconsiously) that they were going to vote for obama, just because of how bad they had it under bush
no matter how hard mccain may have tried to fight this, the american people were still going to make the association, dooming his (or any other republicans') chances for the presidency from the start
I agree with your third point (and the others too, of course). His close fight with Hilary gave him much more attention and free media than McCain who was able to win early. All the focus put on who the democratic candidate will be gave Obama a big boost in getting himself visible and well known by the public.
Another thing, that was both somewhat good and yet devastating to Obama is that his grandma died right before the election. It definitely would have raised a lot of sympathy from some voters. (Maybe it counteracted whatever sympathy people may have felt for McCain being the underdog or having been tortured in Vietnam?)
The popular vote was actually a lot closer but Obama managed to win a ton of the big cities/states. The electoral vote again sort of makes this win somewhat disproportionate. His huge lead does not truly reflect the beliefs of our divided/partisan nation. But whatever, Obama won. Yay.
P.S. I agree, Palin took McCain down with her. Poor guy.
I agree with Michael that there were times when it looked as though this race could be anyone's game. However, this election definately had some extenuating circumstances that made it impossible (at least in my mind) for McCain to win. I mean, President Bush has the lowest approval rating in decades, the economy is in a recession, we are losing the war in Afghanistan, and the world pretty much hates us. Talk about retrospective voting? Of course people want to change this.
I am so happy that Obama won and I think he ran as flawless a campaign as anyone could expect. Yes, there were mishaps, but as Nelia stated, people forgave and forgot. I think Sarah Palin was definately more of a burden than a help to McCain because I think her conservativism and her right-wing ideologies caused the more moderate Republicans and left-leaning independents towards Obama. Overall, I couldn't be more pleased with the result of the Presidential election, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for America with Obama at the helm.
right when Palin opened her mouth, it was over for McCain. Right when McCain took the money, he lost ads compared to Obama. There are many things McCain could have done differently to win. Obama had to start out strong and end strong, while McCain just did not show that extra push to win, he just thought he could win, thinking he had the advantage. He just did not know what he was up against, sadly. Now lets hope that change will come. Im scared for obama safety, lets hope so. But i feel like obama only won because many voters just wanted him to win because it was something different, but do they really all know his policys?
I think the last point you made is a really valid point and maybe something overlooked. A lot of people might have overlooked that Obama got more publicity in his battle against Clinton, when McCain was pretty much sitting and waiting for one of them to win. Overall Obama won because he differentiated himself more than McCain from the current policys of the Bush administration. I'm not really sure how to feel about the outcome of the election. I know there is a lot of change going on already. I just hope its for the best and that Obama does a good job.
Why did Obama win?
Rather, why did McCain lose?
I think the cards were stacked against him from the start.
First, because of the economy.
Second, (I agree with Raj), due to the "terrible mishaps of the Bush administration". Bush's incredibly low approval ratings could only hurt McCain and the Republican Party. Unfortunately, he failed to distance himself from President Bush's policies
McCain did make mistakes. I think the most significant mistake he made that cost him greatly was choosing Sarah Palin as his vice president. Although people loved her at first, numerous scandals and gaffes quickly erased her popularity. Some questioned whether she was up to stepping in as president in case of an emergency.
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