Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The margin of total popular votes obtained by the winner and loser in the US election is only 1Million votes out of 110M votes cast, but it is interesting..........


Barak Obama won a second term, after enduring opinion polls on the last two days predicting a neck and neck race. It goes to show that in the end the voter is split down the middle, with expectations to match. The enormous cost of the election means that the loser will have placed a massive gamble and lost. The donors gave only a portion of their wealth and therefore are generally not the most to disgruntled by backing the loser. It is the party workers on the losing side who will be feeling it the most, not the fundraisers who I bet also helped the winning side, but who are unwilling to admit publicly.

Here are some preliminary findings:

1                   Obama wins with 55% of the women’s vote to 45% of the men's!

2                 60% of the 18-29 yr olds who account for 19% of those who voted and only 44% of 65 yr and older who account for 16% of those who voted.

3                 Obama whilst receiving 62% of the Urban, only got only 39% of the rural vote.

These three facts in on itself does not create a picture, but it is worthy to ponder on what type of person was attracted to each candidate, and which perhaps also says something about the split between likely Republican and Democratic voters. I did not see any breakdown between religious groupings except to say that 80% of all Americans profess some kind of Christian ethic.

Obama-care the health care system was the main item that Obama will be remembered for in his first administration if one discounts the appalling state of the economy he inherited, and which he has still not totally managed to solve.

Older people who are beneficiaries of Medicare, the state subsidized health care system, obviously are not the most enthusiastic about ensuring health coverage for all despite they benefiting anyway due to their age. That is a selfish attitude that concerns all Americans, who are in fear of getting ill, as they are worried that they could lose all their wealth if sickness/illness strikes.

It is therefore left for us to ponder and wonder how the next four years of the Obama administration will differ from the first, as he can now be bold, not needing to be popular and instead act directly in the interests of the Nation, altruistically.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

it is easy to see the excesses of the U.S. on human rights and it is so interesting how similar they are to the ones that they are trying to condemn Sri Lanka for. How was the invasion of a private residence by military forces and the killing in cold blood of an unarmed man (bin Laden) any different than the Prabhakaran killing on the battlefield? I argue that the Prabhakaran killing is MORE justified than the bin Laden one because it was done on an actual battlefield and was not a home invasion by elite military assasins, who were sent there to kill the man rather than accept any surrender.

that said, if Sri Lanka plays its cards right, they can be like any other country in Asia, with regards to human rights. They just need to learn to stay under the radar in that regard rather than making so much noise about things.