THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY ★^1149specialized in buying up other companies and then reselling them at a profit
after restructuring them, which often involved firing large numbers of employ-
ees. But the party’s powerful conservative wing disliked Romney because of his
moderate record (as governor he had instituted a state health- care plan remark-
ably similar to Obama’s 2011 legislation) and a distrust of his Mormon faith
among many evangelical Christians.
Romney spent the primary season attempting to demonstrate his conser-
vative views and reaffirming his adherence to Christian beliefs. Issues long
thought settled such as women’s access to birth control suddenly roiled Amer-
ican politics. Eventually, using his personal fortune to outspend his rivals by
an enormous amount, Romney emerged as the Republican candidate, the first
Mormon to win a major party’s nomination— a significant moment in the his-
tory of religious toleration in the United States. He chose as his running mate
Congressman Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a favorite of the Tea Party and a Roman
Catholic. For the first time in its history, the Republican Party’s ticket did not
contain a traditional Protestant.
President Obama began the 2012 campaign with numerous liabilities. The
enthusiasm that greeted his election had long since faded as the worst economic
slump since the Great Depression dragged on, and voters became fed up with
both the president and Congress because of the intensity of partisanship and
legislative gridlock in Washington. The war in Afghanistan was increasingly
unpopular and Obama’s signature health- care law under ferocious assault by
Republicans.
Nonetheless, after a heated campaign, Obama emerged victorious, win-
ning 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206, and 51 percent of the popular vote
to his opponent’s 47 percent. At the same time, while Democrats gained a few
seats in the House and Senate, the balance of power in Washington remained
unchanged. This set the stage for continued partisan infighting and political
gridlock during Obama’s second term.
Obama’s victory stemmed from many causes, including an extremely effi-
cient “get out the vote” organization on election day, and Romney’s weaknesses
as a campaigner. Romney never managed to shed the image of a millionaire
who used loopholes to avoid paying taxes (his federal tax rate of 14 percent
was lower than that of most working- class Americans) and who held ordinary
people in contempt (an off- the- cuff remark that 47 percent of the people would
not vote for him because they were “victims” dependent on government pay-
ments like Medicare and Social Security severely weakened his campaign).
But more important, as in 2008, the result reflected the new diversity of the
American population in the twenty- first century. Romney won 60 percent of
the white vote, which in previous elections would have guaranteed victory. But
Obama carried over 90 percent of the black vote and over 70 percent of Asians
What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?