In some ways, the hardest thing President Obama had to do was get reelected.

Ezra Klein, a business columnist for The Washington Post, wrote Wednesday that “President Obama’s reelection, ironically, isn’t about hope and change. The hope is largely gone, but the changes are already happening.”

Klein pointed out that health care reform had passed and that just by being reelected Obama had managed to confirm that it would become the law of the land when most of the remaining elements of Obamacare take effect in 2014.

The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as the alternative minimum tax and the payroll tax cut. The president already has said he will not sign legislation extending all three tax cuts.

If that’s the case, then part of the problem of raising revenue is somewhat resolved and the legislation is already on the books.

Add to that the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, which will set new regulations for Wall Street and has already passed into law.

The resolutions to three sticky problems are already on the books and Obama doesn’t have to fight with the Republican-led House of Representatives again to get any of it passed.

“So while in 2008 his election was a vote for hope, in 2012 his reelection carries a guarantee of change,” Klein wrote.

One also may argue that it simply was more of the smart planning that Obama and his team have been known for.

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The GOP’s strategy was to rely largely on white men and shave off small chunks, 5-7 percent of black and Latino votes, a significant percentage of women, although not a majority, to put Romney over the top.

It clearly didn’t work.

“2012 will be the last campaign where one of the major parties seeks to get elected solely with the white vote,” David Bositis, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said Wednesday in a forum to discuss the impact of the black vote during this year’s campaign.

Bositis said the black vote was crucial in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida, the latter where votes are still being counted and Obama maintains a narrow lead—and Romney today conceded the state to Obama.

In Ohio, particularly, the percentage of black voters increased by 4 percentage points, from 11 to 15 percent of the total turnout, compared to 2008. And Obama won 96 percent of the black vote on Tuesday.

“That’s where President Obama’s margin of victory came from, the black vote in Ohio,” Bositis said.

Read more at the Atlanta Black Star.