What Does Last Night Mean?

At a loss for how to talk about President Obama’s re-election?  Here are some talking points put together by Message Matters on the statement our country made last night.  When our FD writers shared about why they were voting for President Obama, these were many of the same reasons they gave.  Share your thoughts in the comments below.  What do you think the country was saying with last night’s election results?  

Victory!

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Tonight is a victory.

It’s a victory for families living paycheck to paycheck and all Americans working hard to build a better life for themselves.

It’s a victory for voters who faced a clear choice between two very different visions for America.

The American people have chosen.

• An America with an economy getting back on track and leaders committed to putting Americans back to work.
• An America where we turn to each other in tough times instead of turning against each other.
• An America where the middle class is the true engine of economic prosperity for all.
• An America where everyone pays their fair share and gets a fair shot.
• An America that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
• An America where we respect all Americans — regardless of where they were born, the color of their skin, or who they love.
• An America where women make their own health care decisions and policy is based on sound medical science, not extreme ideology.
• An America where American ingenuity is the envy of the world, and investments in education, infrastructure, and new industries are the future we build together.

The American people also spoke up and said no.

• To a return to the failed top-down economic policies that wrecked our economy and threw millions of Americans out of work.
• To an America where a person’s wealth matters more than integrity, powerful connections more than family, and size of campaign donations more than love for country.
• To an “I’ve got mine and the rest of you are on your own” agenda to keep the richest few from paying a dollar more in taxes — shifting more of the burden to working families.
• To an agenda that cuts Social Security, turns Medicare into a voucher, and cuts programs that lift struggling families out of poverty.
• To a political party so overrun with extreme ideology towards women that it even downplays rape and makes attacking Americans not like themselves a central part of its platform.
• To divisive, bitter political brinkmanship, where Republicans in Congress recklessly risk the economy just to score cheap political points and make pledges to Washington lobbyists no matter the cost to all.
• To an approach that keeps the game rigged for the privileged few, where the wealthy and Wall Street write their own rules while the rest of us pay the price.
• To a return to endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the start of new wars without regard to national security.

It’s time for us to move forward, as one nation, all in this together.

• More than ever, Americans demand a government of, by, and for the people. We know where to begin.
• Our leaders must commit to a sensible approach to the deficit, one that prioritizes creating jobs — the best way to fix the deficit.
• This fiscally responsible approach means starting by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, eliminating tax loopholes that reward corporations for offshoring jobs, and cutting waste like outdated Pentagon pork our military leaders don’t want.
• Our leaders must resist efforts by politicians and powerful special interests to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits in order to cover for Bush Republicans’ fiscal recklessness, appease extreme ideologues, or pay for more trickle down tax breaks for the wealthy.
• Republicans must wake up to the reality that policies attacking women, as well as those Americans not like themselves, contradict the values and principles that make America great.
• These are serious times, but America has always withstood them and rose above the challenges facing us when we understand that “we’re all in this together.”
• We’ve got much more left to do in the next four years.

Let’s go.