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The December 2011 decision by President Barack Obama's election strategy team to set up formal and informal support offices in over 500 counties around the country paid off Nov. 6. The number of offices surpassed candidate Mitt Romney's office total by at least 4 to 1, according to most Talking TV Heads.The office setups in counties where Obama had strong support in his 2008 victory gave his team boots on the ground. The office personnel then began knocking on doors and meeting potential voters face to face. They repeated that drill throughout 2012, leading right up to election night.
The Romney team finally caught on to the Obama strategy only a few months before the election, but by that time it was too late. The game was over for Romney.
Romney ran a good, honorable race. Give him credit for that. But he and his team goofed badly on strategy. They were banking on winning new votes from African Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, Gays, Single Women and the Young - the same crowd that had brought Obama victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008.
The Romney Gang had convinced itself the Obama crowd was disillusioned and tired of Obama. After all, hadn't the President promised this crowd he would deliver "change" and "a new climate" when he was elected as the first black president in U.S. history four years ago?
Well, you know what happened. This same crowd returned to back Obama again. Latino and Asian-American voters alone gave Obama 70 percent of their vote.
Adding insult to injury, as the cliché goes; Romney suffered a devastating defeat in his home state of Massachusetts. He garnered only 37.6 percent of the popular vote in that 'blue' state against Obama's 60.8 percent, as of Thursday noon. You can't get any more egg on your face than that.
But I didn't wind up with egg on my face when I predicted President Barack Obama's re-election victory last week, did I? (See Election Channel Nov. 2, 2012, Hurricane Storm Gives Obama Credibility to Win Presidency Again.)
However, at least three others did. They were Romney, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Grand Old Radical Party strategist and Fox News contributor Dick Morris.
Romney first saw egg on his face when he announced to the world before the Nov. 6 election that he was so confident of winning that he had written only one speech for the post-election celebrations - a victory speech.
McConnell got egg on his face when he announced months before the election that he had only one goal to achieve in the election - to defeat Obama.
Dick Morris's face was splattered with egg when he brazenly announced on Fox News and on his own website that Romney "will get 351 Electoral (College) votes, a landslide about equal to Obama's 363 vote tally in 2008."
The almost official tally as of Thursday noon, Nov. 8, was 206 Electoral College votes for Romney; 303 for Obama. A 197-vote margin of victory for Obama.
The Popular Vote, still not official at noon Thursday, showed 60,746,400 votes or 50.4 percent for Obama; 57,856,809 or 48 percent for Romney.
The slow-poke Florida voting tallies were not expected to be final until Friday. If Florida gives its 29 Electoral College votes to Obama, he would wind up with a 332 count. If the votes went to Romney, he would end with 235 votes.
A close vote in both categories. No doubt about that. But what is disturbing is that only about 120 million registered voters went to the polls. In 2008, the number was 131 million.
That low voting turnout again stresses to the world the United States of America again is a divided country when it comes to politics, as it has been for over 200 years. The U.S. is really made up of four separate little 'countries', if you will -- a North and South and an East and West. And all four 'countries' vote differently.
Maybe that's good. But what is clear from the voting pattern is that most of the country didn't really like Obama or Romney. They didn't trust Obama but they trusted Romney less. Now Obama has a full plate in front of him as he begins his second term in January.
On that plate is a decision to name a replacement for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a lightweight at best, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a heavyweight. Both had previously announced they would not serve for another four years.
Also considering stepping down are Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. No great losses there.
Can Obama complete what he started in 2008? I am betting against it. The Grand Old Radical Party and the Cracked Teapot Party will be battling him every step of the way, just as they had done in the last four years.
Good night, Irene.
