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Charles Babington of The Associated Press reports:

President Barack Obama’s re-election, coupled with Republicans’ continued hold on the House, gives both parties a chance to rethink, and perhaps undo, the bitter partisanship that has gripped Washington for four years and frustrated Americans who see big problems going unsolved.

It won’t be easy. Both sides claim, with some justification, a mandate from the voters.

“We’ll have as much of a mandate as he will,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said shortly before the election, correctly anticipating the results.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was frostier in his post-election remarks. “The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president’s first term,” McConnell said.

“Now it’s time for the president to propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing the Republican-controlled House,” he said, “and deliver in a way that he did not in his first four years in office.”

After three straight swing elections, Americans decided to keep Obama in the White House, leave Republicans in control of the House and let Democrats stay atop the Senate, with Republicans still able to block measures with filibusters.

There’s an irony, or self-flagellation, there. Americans express exasperation at the partisan sniping and gridlock that pushed the nation to the brink of defaulting on its loans last year, and which might trigger new crises soon. The narrowness of Obama’s win accurately reflects the nation’s nearly 50-50 partisan divide. It’s a split that will make progress on any major issues difficult for at least another two years, and probably longer.

Every newly elected president claims a mandate, and Obama can point to the roughly $1 billion that Mitt Romney and his GOP allies spent trying to oust him. Yet, for all its tactical brilliance, Obama’s campaign was built on relatively modest ideas. It focused on helping the middle class, which is a coalition of identity, not ideology.

It may have been a status quo election. But if the White House and congressional Republicans simply stand their ground on taxes and other issues, they run risks — not just for the nation’s well-being, but also for the legacies of a barrier-breaking president and a Republican Party that has tapped a deep vein of conservative, almost libertarian emotion. (more…)

Posted in: Election, News |

Tags: Tags: election 2012, Josh Mandel, Josh Mandel for U.S. Senate, Ohio election 2012, presidential election, presidential election Ohio, presidential race Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown, Sherrod Brown, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, utler County Election 2012

Deirdre Shesgreen reports:

Sen. Sherrod Brown won a second term to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday – fending off a hard-charging, well-funded GOP challenger and more than $30 million in withering attack ads from outside groups in one of the most expensive and closely watched match-ups in the country.

“Today in Ohio, the middle of America, the middle class won,” a jubilant Brown told supporters gathered at the Hilton in downtown Columbus, where the Ohio Democratic Party held its election night celebration.

Brown said the race was “never about me” but about veterans, steelworkers and other hard-working Ohioans who he promised to fight for in Washington.

Republican challenger Josh Mandel, the state treasurer, congratulated Brown about 11 p.m., adding, “I respect him as a leader. … It was a David versus Goliath battle.”

Brown’s voice was even more raspy than usual, barely audible over the crowd, which interrupted him with chants of “Sherrod, Sherrod, Sherrod.”

Supporters waved placards with a thick red line through the number $40 million – the amount outside groups spent against Brown in the race, which includes about $30 million in ads and $10 million on billboards, literature and other campaign items.

Brown eventually ceded the microphone to his wife, Connie Schultz, to finish reading his speech.

“They spent more money against Sherrod Brown than any Senate candidate in the history of the United States,” Schultz said of the outside groups. But “these groups they don’t know Ohio.

“They didn’t know that we had tens of thousands of volunteers,” she said. “They didn’t know that Ohioans could not be bought.”

Brown’s victory in Ohio – along with other Democratic wins in Missouri, Virginia and elsewhere – means that Democrats will keep control of the Senate come January. So Brown will return to Washington as part of a triumphant majority, not a vanquished minority.

Brown’s comfortable margin on Tuesday night belied a bruising, expensive and nationally watched race that began nearly two years ago. In the process, Ohioans were subjected to a dizzying 12,000 TV ads trying to influence their vote in the race, and the two candidates shattered spending records. (more…)

Posted in: Election, News |

Tags: Tags: election 2012, Josh Mandel, Josh Mandel for U.S. Senate, Ohio election 2012, Senator Sherrod Brown, Sherrod Brown, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, utler County Election 2012