New York – Barack Obama’s “blowout” win of the Electoral College, 332 to 206, which includes Florida, while the popular vote was a near split, speaks to our Founding Fathers’ wisdom to protect small states and unite a nation based upon mutual respect between the states and not the discredited-by-law principle of “might is right.”
In the Electoral College resides the basis for a better United States of America, as the nation was known when born: using “united” as an earned-adjective rather than an entitlement-noun.
There are two large minority blocs in the nation: African Americans and Hispanics (with the Asian Americans as a micro voting bloc). The former, in a very large measure, is historically a natural part of the Democratic base. Hispanics, however, are not. Indeed, the Hispanics can easily be in the Republican base, as they have comfortably been during Richard Nixon and beyond, and in the case of Florida, Cuba and Cuban Americans have driven that state into Republican wins.
After the courts came up short by rejecting Elian Gonzalez’s asylum petition, purely on technical grounds that his mother, who had drowned, couldn’t be a parent-petitioner, Attorney General Janet Reno bungled by not seeking presidential action and instead caused federal agents to storm a quiet family home in the wee hours of the night to rip Elian from his relatives to return him to his father in Cuba, whom his mother had divorced long before seeking a new life in America.
The result of Janet Reno’s meltdown was that Al Gore was left gasping in 2000 in Florida as Miami votes were never counted; forget the hanging or pregnant chad. The Supreme Court decided the election, given James Baker’s strategic and impressive, albeit, incorrect, blowout of Warren Christopher with his, “They are trying to change the rules after the game’s been played,” when every court case is an after-the-fact autopsy and the court decision changes society daily with new precedent.
The Supreme Court, with a 7-2 vote, did discover that our 50 states’ electoral process, being non-uniform, was violating the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause.
In the years to come, the Hispanics will remain the “electoral bride,” as they can be equally wooed by the Democrats or the Republicans. Indeed, there is a large swath of wealthy Hispanics, especially, Cuban Americans who are die-hard Republicans ever since the botched Bay of Pigs misadventure. But that was then, and this is now.
Cuba, with Castro aging and his caretaker brother Raul in charge, is seeking to liberalize life and property, at least in part, so that the spread between a Cold War country, aligned with the non-existing Soviet Bloc, and the West is now finally minimizing, as it should, as the Stalin-Soviets are Soviets no more and Russia is more market driven. That Hispanics are Catholics also makes them more apt to be right-to-lifers, as are the Republicans.
So, expect Republicans to comprehend this stark reality beyond mere celebration of Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio. The Dems of course have had New Jersey’s Cuban American Bob Menendez as a United States Senator.
This year’s electoral capture of the Hispanic vote bloc was secured by the red-hot kiss and warm welcome mat: the new mid-year “under 30 non-deportation” executive policy issued by President Obama, just at the height of agony caused by the tragic Indian American Kairi Shepard adoption case (and its exposure of ineffective counsel, causing Kairi to be subject to deportation, when she is not to be deported under Supreme Court precedent). Secretary Janet Napolitano carried out the under-30 no-deportation policy effectively and with gusto.
This was targeted, with sniper accuracy, at undoing a massive injustice and a colossal nightmare, if deportation was actually to be effectuated – a win/win for government and the deportable people. The Republicans’ loud core base, way off right, demanded, as does Arizona, obedience to immigration laws, despite the in-fact and on-the-ground reality of Swiss cheese broken borders.
Our “open” borders are an “attractive nuisance,” a term of legal art, for which government bears responsibility. In addition, the Constitution gives exclusive power to the Executive for conducting foreign relations. Yet, the issue of an “open” border is also an issue of domestic policy and I expect to see some very serious action to close that border. (I also expect debt being engorged for investments rather than entitlements.)
The border and our fiscal policy are related topics, for if we don’t get our fiscal house in order, America will not remain a nation folks want to get into. So to maintain American supremacy and sovereignty, the current “Fiscal Cliff” is an added engine pushing our leaders to recalibrate our policies, domestic and foreign.
The lessons of 2012 on presidential politics, for the Electoral College does not exist for members of Congress or the US Senate, is that Republicans must address both issues: securing our borders to give real meaning to law and sovereignty; and a clear pathway to citizenship by those who are now illegally residing, or better, domiciled, in the United States.
The ways and means, albeit, not called a comprehensive approach, will be a “step by step” approach that is enacted so that if the illegals walk the “tough” path, they can achieve citizenship.
I must note that for a nation founded by immigrants, and continually enriched by waves of immigrants, like the Irish and Italians a century ago, and since the mid-1960’s with others from across the world, America is stronger than it has ever been. The bogeyman folks see in immigration, legal and illegal, is because our fiscal house is in disarray. More H1B visas issued give America more wealth.
Racial Divide – May Well Be Legally Invisible Soon
The 2012 election loosened the racial divide, not tightened it. In fact, it was the 2008 election, which Barack Obama also won, that caused a sharper racial divide, even as our nation washed itself of the original sin of slavery. In addition, this time, Bill Clinton warmly embraced Barack Obama, while the 2008 election proved that Bill Clinton is indeed white, but is soulfully sensitive to African Americans.
One large consequence of the 2008 and 2012 electoral wins by Barack is that the United States Supreme Court will hasten the demise of remedial affirmative action laws; much faster than Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expected to sunset them.
Surely, if you can win the presidency twice, the biggest job of all without any remedial laws, you don’t need affirmative action anymore and the American Dream will become “equally available” to all (as affirmative action laws depress the American Dream for some, as a cost for prior advantage enjoyed, while making it easier for others who were denied “equal” access in the past).
So, the racial politics will politically kick into high gear, while legally the law will recognize race less so before decreeing it to be invisible in court. Ultimately, Barack Obama’s second term win heals the divisions within the Democratic family, the Clintonians and the Obamaites, and makes them “one” and 2016 Dems will have a unified invitation to Hillary on a silver platter, if she wants it, to run for president as a Democratic nominee.
The Republicans still can’t believe the electoral results. Disbelief, driven by a poor economy and a successful businessman as their nominee, made Karl Rove go “nuts” on Fox TV.
The Tea Partiers and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the one-negative-agenda Leader dedicated to making Barack a one-termer, are the big losers.
The sensitive and capable Speaker John Boehner is, as it should always have been given his gavel, the true Republican Leader willing to cross the aisle and bring the Republicans back into the game and engage more fully to do the people’s business. If not, Leader Nancy Pelosi is more than capable to regain the Speaker’s gavel in the 2014 mid-term elections.
Either way, America wins and gets stronger after the 2012 election, and nations around the world have to embrace America better, given our new found unity.
Ravi Batra, Esq.
Ravi Batra, starting September 11, 2021, is a publisher ofThe America Times Company Ltd., and since January 2022, is the Editor-in-Chief. He is a member of the National Press Club, in Washington D.C., and a member of its "Freedom of the Press" and "International Correspondents" Teams/Committees.
A member of the bar since 1981, he is the head of a boutique law firm in Manhattan, The Law Firm of Ravi Batra, P.C., that handles complex constitutional, sovereignty, torture, civil and criminal cases, representing governments, corporates and individuals, with landmark legal victories, including, libel in fiction, in “Batra v. Dick Wolf.” He is Chairman & CEO, Greenstar Global Energy Corp., King Danylo of Galicia International Ltd., Mars & Pax Advisors, Ltd., Chairman of National Advisory Council on South Asian Affairs, and since September 2021, Advisor for Legal and Humanitarian Affairs to the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations. He is invited by various governments to address High Level Ministerial events, including, on Counter-Terrorism, including, Astana (Nur-Sultan), Dushanbe, Minsk and Delhi. He has testified in Congress as an invitee of the Chair, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, and interacted with U.S. Department of State from 1984 -1990, and then again, from 2006, during the tenures of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and Antony Blinken.
He has served as Commissioner of New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), Trustee on New York State IOLA Board, New York State Judicial Screening Committee for the Second Judicial Department, City Bar’s Judicial Committee, Vice-Chair of Kings County Democratic County Committee’s Independent Judicial Screening Committee for the then-2nd Judicial Department of Brooklyn and Staten Island, Chair of NYSTLA’ Judicial Independence Committee, with many more bar leadership roles, including, NYSBA’s House of Delegates for four years. He has served as Advisor for Legal & Human Rights Affairs to the Permanent Mission of Ukraine post-annexation of Crimea till 2021, and Legal Advisor to numerous nations’ permanent missions to the U. N. since 2009, including, India, Pakistan, Honduras and Malta. He has served: as Global Special Counsel to The Antonov Company in Ukraine, a state-owned company, and was registered with the Justice Dept pursuant to FARA; and as Special Global Advisor to Rector/President of both - National Aviation University of Ukraine and National Technical University of Ukraine/KPI. He remains involved in geopolitics and public policy since the mid-1980's, starting with being on House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s Speaker’s Club and appointed member of NACSAA during President Ronald Reagan’s tenure. In 1988, he was part of U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese’s Delegation to Japan to resolve bilateral trade imbalance. He regularly interacts with the multilateral diplomatic community, and during the High Level UNGA Debate, with heads of State/Government. He is sought for his views as a speaker and writer.