2012 US Presidential Election (The Second Renaissance)
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| United States presidential election, 2012 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 6, 2012 | ||||
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| Nominee | Barack Obama | Mitt Romney | ||
| Party | Democratic | Republican | ||
| Home state | Illinois | Massachusetts | ||
| Running mate | Hillary Clinton | Tim Pawlenty | ||
| Electoral vote | 468 | 70 | ||
| States carried | 38 + D.C | 12 | ||
| Popular vote | 88,531,456 | 49,456,373 | ||
| Percentage | 62% | 34.6% | ||
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| Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Romney/Pawlenty (12 ), Blue denotes Obama/Clinton(38 + D.C.). | ||||
The United States presidential election of 2012 was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. It was the 57th consecutive quadrennial United States presidential election and was the most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States (in terms of popular vote). The election took place as the Bush Recession entered its fifth year, and the first year of the Flood. Incumbent President Barack Hussein Obama was still working to push the provisions of his Green America economic policy through Congress and the courts. However, the economic stimulus policies he had already enacted, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan and the Ted Kennedy Memorial Healthcare Act, had proven to be quite popular with most Americans. Obama's Republican opponent was former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a moderate by Republican standards. Although some political pundits predicted a close race, Obama would win the greatest popular landslide since the beginning of the current U.S. two-party system in the 1850s, carrying 468 electoral votes, and winning won 62% of the national popular vote, the highest popular-vote percentage won by a U.S.presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan's 1984 victory over Walter Mondale.
Domestic policy and the economy eventually originally were the main themes in the first few months of the election campaign, but following the Flood, climate change became the central issue to the campaign.
President Barack Obama, Democrat from Illinois, defeated Republican Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusets. Nine states changed allegiance from the 2008 election. Each had voted for the Republican nominee in 2008 and contributed to Obama's landslide Electoral College victory. The selected electors from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia voted for President and Vice President of the United States on December 15, 2012. Those votes were tallied before a joint session of Congress on January 8, 2013. Obama received 468 electoral votes, Romney received 70.
One of the most notable aspects of the 2012 election was the ascendancy of a woman, Hillary Clinton, to the vice-Presidency. While women had served in cabinet position, the most prominent being Madeleine Albright who served in the Clinton administration, and women had sought the vice-Presidency, most notably Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, until 2012, no woman had been elected to the position of vice president.
Table of Contents |
[edit] Democratic Primaries
[edit] Democratic candidates gallery
President Barack Obama of Illinois |
 Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana |
[edit] Republican Primaries
[edit] Republican candidates gallery
 JEB Bush Former Governor of Florida |
Mitt Romney Former Governor of Massachusetts |
 Mike Huckabee Former Governor of Arkansas |
 Newt Gingrich Former Speaker of the House from Georgia |
 Charlie Crist Senator from Florida |
 Ron Paul Congressmen from Texas |
The Republican Primaries of 2012 were seen by many as the divisions within the Republican party coming to fruition. Every candidate was considered a serious candidate in their own right, and effectively each was the head of one of the party's many factions. Romney led the Reaganites; Charlie Crist, the Moderates; Bush ran to restore the family name; Gingrich to return Republicans to their status during the Clinton years; Ron Paul was in charge of the libertarians; Huckabee the Christian Right. In many ways these primaries would decide the future of the Republican party, which was already suffering from humiliating defeats in 2010 and an image of radicalism; being considered by many to be outdated and out of touch with the rest of the country. Charlie Crist and Ron Paul acted as the party's two great reformers. Crist easily won his home state of Florida, driving Bush out of the Race, and Paul scored a sizable victory in his home state of Texas. Crist went on to secure victories in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, driving Gingrich out of the race. While Romney scored a big wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and his home state of Massachusetts. Huckabee once again swept the deep South, and Ron Paul won Washington and Oregon. In California, Romney, Crist, and Paul all fought it out in what some feared to be a three way tie, but Crist emerged victorious. Ron Paul showed promise in Oklahoma, but lost Arizona to Romney. With losses all across the midwestern states and the bible belt to Mitt Romney, Governor Huckabee dropped out of the race to support Governor Romney after Super Tuesday. Ron Paul's revolution died after the Super Tuesday primaries and after a smear campaign in New York, was effectively driven out of the party. Crist won very little after Super Tuesday, and by January Romney narrowly emerged victorious, with Tim Pawlenty as his running mate.
[edit] Backround
In 2008, President Barack Obama won the presidency, defeating the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, in a re-aligning election from Ronald Reagan's Republican party. After Democratic pickups in the House and Senate in the 2006 elections, Democrats maintained control of both legislative branches of the federal government, and grew to a supermajority in the House in 2008.
Obama's approval ratings had held fairly high levels for most of his first term, never wavering up or down more than 10 points from the average of 60%. Obama was elected with a large Electoral College margin in 2008 and a modest majority of the popular vote, after his first 100 days, Obama's approval rating rose more quickly, with the Ted Kennedy Universal Healthcare Act's passage (a humiliating defeat for the far right,) the passage of the FY 2010 federal budget, and the crafting of the SAFeT treaty.
By September 2010, Obama's approval rating was holding at 60%, and the Democratic party appeared to have a clear advantage in the upcoming Congressional elections. Additionally, Democrats pulled out several surprise victories in Congress and held the majority in both houses, as well as a two house supermajority. Obama's approval ratings continued to hold in the low 60s for the rest of his term.
Following the federal response to hurricane Tyler across the gulf of Mexico, Obama's popularity surged.
[edit] General Election
The election was held on November 6, 2012.
Obama won by a landslide, carrying 38 of the 50 states with the addition of the District of Columbia and bringing in additional Democratic members of Congress that created a two house supermajority and effectively destroyed the Republicans as a major party. Obama's 64.2% of the popular vote is the largest percentage in U.S. history since the nearly unopposed election of James Monroe in 1820 and his 98.5% of the electoral vote is the highest in two-party competition. Roosevelt won the largest number of electoral votes of any Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection, who only surpassed Obama's 468 electoral votes by 57 more votes. Most political pundits were not surprised that the Republicans, whom many voters blamed for the Bush Depression, would soon become an extinct political party. However, the end of the Republican party in this election spawned the Populist party as a major political force.
[edit] Campaign issues
[edit] Afghanistan & Pakistan
By 2011 the war in Afghanistan had shifted to become a war on the Afghan/Pakistan border in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan where most of Al Qaeda's leaders were hiding. Negotiations, and in some cases bribes, with moderate sects of the Taliban calmed the insurgency in parts of the country, but most major combat continued on the border. President Obama was critisized by Governor Romney for his plans to begin removing most troops from Pakistan in 2012 and shift operations specifically to drone attacks and offshore special operations, though the President was somewhat vindicated during the campaign by the successful drone strike on the Pashtunistan mountains that killed al Qaedan second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri.
[edit] The Economy
By the election the economy had finally begun to steadily grow again. Not with the same fervor as it had prior to the Bush Recession, but with a steady 1.6% growth rate.
[edit] Presidential and Vice-Presidential Debates
[edit] Climate Change
In 2012 the Greenland Ice Shelf had completely receded during the summer, causing sea levels to rise by as much as 20 meters. The floods drove millions out of the deep south, and flooded the San Francisco Bay Area. The cause was clear, global climate change. In 2009, and 2010 President Obama introduced into the budgets legislation for a cap and trade system, both times the Conservadems and Republicans removed it from the bill, in 2011 the President introduced the legislation again, citing how CO2 levels were, "dangerously high, and if we do not act soon, we will pay the consequences." The quote was little more than a vague call to pass the bill, but it became the quote played round the clock on cable news shows when the floods hit. Obama had signed into law a tax on carbon emissions in 2010, but now was calling for a "Green America." This eventually manifested itself in the Green America acts, that would impose national cap and trade, and put more funds towards clean energy. Vice Presidential Candidate Pawlenty made an cataclismic mistake for the campaign in the face of the crisis, defending that, "Global Warming is just a theory." The soundbite destroyed the Romney campaign, and even after Romney tried to rebut it, going so far as to hold talks about possibly dumping Pawlenty, the damage was done. When the Russian permafrost melted and released millions of tons of methane into the atmosphere, the southern ice caps began to melt off, by election day over a billion people were displaced as climate refugees around the world.
[edit] Grand total
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote | Running mate | Running mate's home state | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Pct | ||||||
| Barack Obama | Democratic | Illinois | 88,531,456 | 62% | 468 | Hillary Clinton | New York |
| Mitt Romney | Republican | Massachusetts | 49,456,373 | 34.6% | 70 | Tim Pawlenty | Minnisota |
| Ronald Ernest Paul | Populist | Texas | 2,125,023 | 1.5% | 0 | Bob Barr | Georgia |
| Ralph Nader | Independent | Connecticut | 1,708,303 | 1.2% | 0 | Jesse Ventura | Minnesota |
| Alan Keyes | Constitution | Maryland | 1,046,721 | 0.7% | 0 | Diane Beall Templin | Califronia |
| Total | 142,867,867 | 100.0% | 538 | ||||
| Needed to win | 270 | ||||||
