Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Election Winners and Losers in 2012

Whether you believe or not the sky is falling or we are on our way to prosperity, I have some final thoughts on the 2012 Election looking at from the national, state and local level.  I will also examine my local precinct which is an area that transitions from blue to red.

NATIONALLY

The president won reelection capturing much of the youth, minority and female vote.  On a national level female incumbents won with also women being elected to make 1 of 5 members in the US Senate are female. Big money was a big loser with Tom Smith ponying 17 million of his own dollars to get beat.

Same sex marriage was approved in Maryland and Maine while their farming industry will get a big boom in Washington and Colorado with recreational marijuana use being approved.

STATEWIDE

I took a look at my precinct results where the GOP holds a 2 to 1 advantage over the Democratic Party.  I also looked into some Blue areas where I grew up.  Most people came out to vote for Mitt Romney and most of the GOP ballot.  Kathy Kane made some headway in my area where the GOP won most elections by a 20 point margin.  I believe this went a long way in keeping GOP incumbents in both US and State Houses.

LOCAL

There wasn't a local contested race in the 108th House and 27th Senate Districts.  Over in the 107th Kurt Masser won a 2nd term for Harrisburg.  Education funding and ACT 22 may have been trumped by Romney.



A summary for some of the winners and losers.  Let's start off with the winners which include women, minorities, and youth.  Also issues such as marijuana and gay marriage moved forward.  The US Senate will be controlled by the Democrats until 2015.  Big Energy and Big Banking will be under further scrutiny until 2016. Conservation and alternate energy won a stay. President Obama will be appointing more Supreme Court Justices.  Common Sense also was a winner when most voters believed the policies of Bush Administration were the root of the financial crisis according to the Associated Press.

Depending on how you want to slice it, some of the loser on the national level include big money, big banks, big energy, the Tea Party Movement and white male policymakers(not being racist just stating the facts.)  With most state races in PA on the back burner, education will also be a loser with most local school boards being back to square one when January rolls around. Tom Corbett was a big loser in two ways.  The row offices of Auditor General, Attorney General, and State Treasurer are all in Democratic hands.  Attorney General-elect Kane was given a mandate to look into Corbett's conduct as AG during the Sandusky investigation.  With 3 more trials for PSU officials on the horizon, this is only the beginning. 

Let's face it. For the most part, we are still the same nation and made up of the same officials that we were on Monday.  It's time to work together.  The change everyone needs to embrace is that we have changing electorate making those decisions and that's not a bad thing.  God Bless America!!!

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