And the nation went Democrat; it's a grim night for the GOP. Democrat senate hold is looking pretty comfortable, Obama with over three hundred electoral college votes. He's beaten my own call of 281 by miles, so I'm glad I didn't put any money on it! I've all-nighted watching the results come in at the Cambridge Union Society, which was an excellent atmosphere (fairly heavily Obama, but there were a fair few Republicans as well, had an interesting chat with a guy who'd worked for Rand Paul a couple of years back).
The Democrats have a lot of relief tonight, but a lot of challenges. Primarily on debt and keeping the country solvent in the short term, brokering a deal with congress quickly to keep spending going is going to be hugely important. The question really is whether the GOP, with a weaker hand, will solidify their opposition to the President & Senate or prove more amenable to compromise - and whether the Democrats, equally, manage to not overplay their hand given they have to compromise rather than go to loggerheads with the House of Representatives. Then of course there are foreign policy challenges in Syria and so on, but really... it's the debt that counts. If the economy improves, it could seal Obama's legacy as a major reforming president who (regardless of which of these he should or should not be credited for) oversaw killing Bin Laden, presided over an economy returning to health via his own path of stimulus and auto bailouts, made major reforms of healthcare, and rewrote the book on American interventionism. The biggest block is the ability of the Democrats to deal with Republicans in the House, who still simply work on different economic paradigms to the President and don't trust him. I don't envy them the task.
The Republicans have a bigger problem though - direction. They've run very heavily - increasingly so - on a platform based on religion, extreme fiscal conservatism, and immigration restrictions. This has effectively led to a platform based on older, white, religious, male voters, and the most serious take-away from Romney's loss is that this platform is now pretty untenable. The risks are twofold - libertarians and social conservatives are increasingly difficult to corral into a collective electoral block, and so rebuilding the broad church of the party must be one point. On the other hand, a move to the centre risks alienating major donors and the most enthusiastic voting and volunteering blocks the GOP currently has. Demographic crisis can be resolved, but no path to doing so is easy.
The third parties are looking more positive (though from a poor start point, of course), for two key reasons. Firstly, there's been an increased attempt to use unconventional media and join together for publicity purposes if not on the ballot paper. The Third Party Debate was a good example of this. Secondly, the Libertarians have finally found someone who can be bothered to stick out the course. It's a fairly common thing for a disaffected republican to head for the Libs and get a nomination. What hasn't happened is someone with the experience and intelligence of Former Governor Johnson taking on the cause between elections, which - if the libertarians can adopt a cleverer approach to electoral politics - could really improve their ability to take votes & seats. I may be over-stepping this, but frankly a lot of Americans are libertarian, and whilst I may perhaps be a horribly machiavellian political animal at times I think that at the same time giving people the chance to vote with their convictions is something which no society - and certainly no democracy - should underestimate.