It’s easy to understand why some Republicans and pollsters dismissed the idea that the Obama coalition from 2008 would be fired up and ready to go in 2012. Not possible. Not with the unemployment rate at 14.3 percent among blacks, 10 percent among Hispanics, and 11.8 percent among adults under 30.

Yet, fired up or just trudging to the polls, those groups were among President Obama’s principal bulwarks against defeat in decisive states. In some cases they made up a greater share of the national electorate than they did in 2008. The outcome confounded some conservatives and surprised even some pollsters.

African-Americans, for instance, made up 13 percent of the national electorate in the historic 2008 election. This week, after years of a down economy, months of a dispiriting campaign, and long-running rumblings about whether Obama has neglected the black community, distanced himself from it, or taken it for granted, they were still at 13 percent of the electorate.

“Black voters were absolutely not going to let Obama lose if they could help it,” said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. They proved particularly useful to Obama in swing states. Black voters went from a 12-percent share of the electorate in Michigan in 2008 to 16 percent this week, exit polls showed, and from 11 percent to 15 percent in Ohio. Under-30 voters accounted for 19 percent of the national electorate, up from 18 percent. Hispanics, meanwhile, rose from 9 percent to 10 percent.

Read more at the National Journal.

After the thrill of the Nov. 6 federal election victories subside, after the agony of defeat has eased, after the laureates have been named and the scapegoats have been blamed, the old administration and the old Congress must come together in a “lame duck” governing session beginning Nov. 13 to resolve some vitally important issues. Then both major parties must strategize how to move the nation forward facing at least two more years of possible gridlock.

The reelection victory for President Barack Obama could be interpreted by the White House and his Democratic allies as a mandate to pursue economic recovery and debt reduction his way, first insisting on raising taxes on families making more than $250,000. The president would likely push to steer money toward energy development, education and worker training, manufacturing support and rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure.

“(President) Obama will have a lot of leverage,” Dr. David Bositis, senior research fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies told The Final Call, before the president won reelection Nov. 6. “He basically will be in the driver’s seat and get—I won’t say he gets what he wants—but he’ll get most of what he wants.”

Read more at The Final Call.

For many African Americans, this election was not just about holding on to history, but also confronting what they perceived as a shadowy campaign to suppress the black vote.

Black voters responded with a historic turnout here in Ohio and strong showings across a range of battleground states, according to exit poll results. Buoyed by a sophisticated ground operation by the Obama campaign, African Americans helped provide the edge in Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and perhaps Florida, which remained too close to call Wednesday. Their support narrowed President Obama's losing margin in North Carolina.

"This is a man who is fighting for the opportunity for all people to reach the American dream," said retired Marine Andre Baird, 55, as champagne dripped down his bald head at an Obama victory party in Cleveland on Tuesday night. "These hands," Baird added, his right hand clenching into a fist, "have knocked on at least a thousand doors!"

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African American voters had more concrete relationships with Obama in this election and had benefited from his first term, said David Bositis, a researcher with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Obama's health-care overhaul, in particular, offered a disproportionate benefit to African Americans, 36 percent of whom previously lacked health coverage, as opposed to whites, 12 percent of whom lacked coverage, he said.

In North Carolina, the African American vote held at 23 percent, the same level as 2008, even as the pull of making history faded.

Read more at The Independent.

The strong showing from blacks and Hispanics at the polls on Tuesday that helped re-elect President Barack Obama and boosted several Democrats into office across the country will force the Republican Party to change its strategy in the future, says Dr. David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

“This was not simply a re-election, but 2012 will be the last campaign where one of the major parties seeks to get elected, solely with the white vote,” Bositis said during a briefing today on the Role of African American voters. “A successful political movement will have to appeal to a broader swath other than non-Hispanic white people.”

The 2012 election was a clear showing that America is now multi-racial, multi ethnic country, he said.

According to the Joint Center, when Democrat John Kerry faced George W. Bush in 2004, 79 percent of American electorate was non-Hispanic white. By 2008, that percentage had dropped to 74 and this year, it was 72 percent.

At the same time, the share of African American voters and the share of Hispanic voters increased.

The share of African American voters has grown from 11 to 13 percent, while the share of Hispanic voters has grown from 6 to 10 percent, Bositis said.

Read more at Black America Web.

The Grand Old Party is still asking why and engaging in Presidential Election post mortem after their candidate Governor Mitt Romney lost the election. Over the weekend some Republicans began blaming a possible loss of momentum on Superstorm Sandy. Since Wednesday morning, they are simply pointing fingers. For many the answer is clear; the GOP walked away from their prior umbrella approach to include the nation’s minority populations.

The Party walked away from something former RNC Chairman Michael Steele made a priority while leading the RNC. Steele included outreach to those in “Harlem” and to those in “Little Havana” as well as other minority communities.

President Obama, prior to the election, told White House reporters Romney would “lose” because he did not reach out to the Latino population.

David Bositis, Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, contends “One of the big stories of this campaign is how much Hispanics were alienated by the Republican Party.” Stories on the black vote are not as newsy. Bositis contends, “African Americans were already alienated before the campaign started.” Translation from the media mindset; that was nothing new.

Read more at AprilDRyan.com.

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.

The impending and dreaded so-called fiscal cliff is a deadline on a group of bills and legislative acts that currently govern almost all facets of the federal government, with many of the current laws, tax codes and more set to change or expire simultaneously.

This is a deadline that if not avoided by timely and effective congressional action, will trigger severe and nearly immediate funding cuts—sequestration—in federal programs and services along with tax increases estimated in the $650 billion range, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The major portion (approximately $500 billion) would be caused by increased taxes when the Bush and other tax cuts expire, combined with Congress’ refusal to patch the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

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Many in the nation’s economic community feel these actions, or Congress’ lack of action, by midnight Dec. 31, 2012., could possibly trigger another deep recession.

Economist Wilhelmina Leigh said this impasse is not due to any one thing, nor is it attributable to recent economic shortfalls, but has been brewing for years. Leigh is a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C.

“The U.S. has been on a collision course for the last decade or so, where we’re spending more and taking in less in revenues,” said Leigh. “We haven’t been able to change that pattern of behavior because members of Congress weren’t really willing to, and now all sorts of things have converged—our deficit each year has been adding up over time, so now we have a huge debt.”

Read more at Our Weekly.

One month after the re-election of President Barack Obama, more than 40 Black leaders convened this week to begin crafting what appears to be a strategy by which to hold politicians accountable to a suffering Black community that has given overwhelming political allegiance to President Obama and the Democratic Party.

“We just concluded a historic four-hour discussion about the state of the nation, the state of Black America, the challenges and problems we face, as well as the excitement we feel about our ability to impact the challenges of now and the future,” National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial began the afternoon press conference Dec. 3. “We embrace our historic role as the conscience of the nation and we are united in our mission to support and protect the well-being of the African-American community, low income and working class Americans across the nation.”

Immediately, Morial read a joint statement from the group, focusing on what politicians and economists are calling the “fiscal cliff”, a year-end convergence of tax hikes that could throw already economically destitute people into a tail spin.

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The meeting, led by Morial at a Washington, D.C. hotel, was convened by him, Melanie Campbell, president/CEO, the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation; the Rev. Al Sharpton, president/CEO, the National Action Network; and Ben Jealous, president/CEO of the NAACP. A string of other stalwart Black organizations were also represented, including the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; the National Congress of Black Women; the Black Women’s Roundtable; the Hip Hop Caucus; and the Institute of the Black World – 21st Century.

Read more at Politic365.

If Republicans and Democrats don’t reach a 12th hour deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” many lower-and middle-income families will feel deep pain, according to analysis by economists and respected think tanks.

The Budget Control Act, set to expire at the end of the year, will usher in draconian social spending and defense cuts along with tax hikes on all Americans if lawmakers can’t get a deal done. Much of the impact of such a decision –or non-decision – will come later in the year, some changes will be immediate.

“The most immediate one is the payroll tax,” said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a fiscal policy and public program research group. “That’s going to come right out of your paycheck, your first is one going to change.”

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Wilhelmina Leigh, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, an independent research group in Washington, D.C., said that uncertainty about the direction of the country’s economic policy is just as bad the specter of the fiscal cliff, because it becomes harder for businesses, domestic and abroad, and American families to plan for the future.

“You don’t know exactly where the shortfall will hit you,” said Leigh. “It’s going to show up in a lot little ways.”

Read more at the Greene County Democrat.

In Bibb County, Ala., on Tuesday, a Democrat named Walter Sansing was in a race for county commissioner against a Republican named Charles Beasley, who was on the ballot despite the inconvenience of having died several weeks earlier. Mr. Beasley won.

That is what kind of Election Day it was in the South. Elsewhere Republicans may be wailing and gnashing teeth, but in the mid- and Deep South states, they had yet another cycle of unchecked domination.

For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans took over the Arkansas legislature, and won the state’s last United States House of Representatives seat held by a Democrat. North Carolina elected a Republican governor and took over at least three Congressional seats. The last Democrat in a statewide office in Alabama was defeated. In most Southern states, the margins of victory for Mitt Romney were even larger than the lopsided margins for John McCain four years ago.

“It was kind of weird on Wednesday for Republicans here,” said Jason Tolbert, a conservative blogger and a columnist for The Arkansas News Bureau. His conclusion: “In Arkansas, we’re a right-of-center state in a nation that’s drifting further and further to the left.”

Despite the local victories, Republicans in the South are aware that many of the post-election analyses have found the party’s image problems to be in the approach and the appeals that have led to its near total victory here. Southern Republican politicians continue to cruise smoothly to victory on the votes of white, socially conservative evangelicals. While some leaders have succeeded with a more centrist platform, like Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, a large part of the Southern electorate still rewards politicians who promise to crack down hard on criminals and illegal immigrants, assume a defiant tone when speaking about the federal government and dismiss the idea of gay rights out of hand.

Nationally, this approach has been putting up diminishing returns.

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“If the Republicans don’t adapt and the Democrats become the dominant party, the government is going to start imposing policies on the Southern states,” said David A. Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Read more at The New York Times.