Epinicium

EPICINIUM! For those who don’t speak Latin this translates to, THE AFTERMATH! Yes, you all know Tuesday was Election Day for the Senate, the House and the Gubernatorial race. More important than simple, raw figure, is the effect of this election on both our struggling President, and his plans for the future of the United States and her citizens. 

From the Democratic side of things we saw some serious losses. In the House dropped from 256 seats (20 open Democrat Seats) to 186 seats in a body where 218 constitutes a majority. This 60-seat drop was found in a couple of huge turnaround states. Now to the Senate where the Democrats didn’t exactly stay strong but held their ground… that is better than nothing. Last term they led 59 to 41, a crushing majority, but one that couldn’t hold on to popularity. This is shown in the complete 180 turns of North Dakota, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana with pretty juristic party changes, especially in the Senate. We see that times are changing and without the government making progress people are looking to do it for them. I find no problem with the people taking the initiative its how things are going to get stuff done.

Over to the right we see just the opposite. The House saw gains from 179 seats to 239 seats, a huge shift in the balance of power. Over in the Senate, the Republicans jumped from 41 to 47 seats, only 4 away from the majority. This was again due to a lot of the turnarounds in both chambers. The numbers are not yet set in stone, with a few races still counting votes, but general results are all tallied. I am here to talk about the aftermath of this election. Obama is going to have to really work as a bipartisan leader to get stuff done. Economic problem solvers are going to have to appease to not just their interests but really those of the people.

This brings me to leave you all with a couple of things. The big shifts of power means the president is working harder to fix America now. What is he going to have to do to please the masses? Power being differentiated among chambers though makes this an odd situation. To close I will ask what do you think can be done to please the Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, and most importantly the people?

-J. Sullivan