Election Day 2012 Winners

Here are a few of the big winners from Election Day 2012:

• The Obama coalition

“The 2008 Obama coalition wasn’t a fluke; it was the country we are becoming.”

“While President Obama was wooing minority voters, Republicans were doing everything they can, on both symbolic and substantive grounds, to drive them away.”

• The sick; the uninsured; those with chronic and pre-existing health problems

“The most concrete thing that strikes me about this public verdict is that Health Care Reform, Obamacare, a system of near universal coverage that will provide a framework for future reform, is here for good.”

“President Obama’s reelection means that his signature legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, will fully come into effect.”

• The 47 percent

“There is and will be a role for government in safety nets, market failure, social insurance, financial oversight. … We’re In This Together beat You’re On Your Own  — and that is a very good thing.”

“We rejected a singular focus on cutting help for the poor to boost the incomes of the wealthy. We rejected a cynical brand of power that holds hostage the economic fate of millions for short-term political gain. And we rejected the politics of fear that would have us discriminate against minorities of all kinds — women, Latinos, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, and that tiny minority whose voice is barely heard within our halls of power: the poor.”

• Women

“As many as five new women senators are set to join the upper chamber – four of them Democrats in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Hawaii, with one new Republican woman senator from Nebraska.”

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg can safely retire, and if Scalia and Kennedy is forced out the Court could have a liberalish median vote for the first time  since 1969. At least, Roe v. Wade is safe. The judicial branch will, if at too slow a pace, become less dominated by neoconfederates.”

• Marriage equality; LGBT rights

“Minnesota and Washington … have joined Maryland and Maine in rejecting attempts by anti-gay activists to deny marriage equality to LGBT couples.”

“Voters in Maryland and Maine legalized same-sex marriage by popular vote Tuesday, the first time in U.S. history that gay marriage has been approved at the ballot box.”

“Tammy Baldwin becomes the first open lesbian and openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate.”

• The franchise; citizenship

“Young People Fight Back Against Voter Suppression in Ohio”

“From my little perspective here in northeast Ohio, Obama’s vaunted ground game appears legit.”

• Immigration reform; DREAMers

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the election showed that Democrats are the party of diversity, and he plans to bring up an immigration reform bill next year.”

“The mood was celebratory Tuesday night at Arcos Restaurant in Fells Point, where the Dreamers — students brought to the United States illegally as children, who now want to pursue higher education here — won their battle for in-state tuition breaks at the state’s public colleges and universities.”

• Nate Silver and arithmetic

“Like everyone who has ever played poker seriously knows, when the math disagrees with your gut, it’s because your gut is wrong.”

• Science

“A step in the right direction … but there are many more steps to go”

• Catholic laypeople; the nuns on the bus

“All those letters that were written to them by all those bishops and they still voted for all the wrong sort of biblical values.”

“The Catholic laity’s 77 million members — who represent the largest religious denomination in the U.S. — largely support civil marriage for gay partners.”

• Consumers

“Oh, dear Jesus, she’s going to cause so many people so much trouble down there.”

• Harry Reid

“The Democratic-controlled Senate is likely to be considerably more liberal than the one it replaces.”

• Climate science; clean energy

“Open and strong leadership from Obama on climate will be a political winner for those politicians who make this a top issue, as numerous polls this year have shown.”

“Wind energy in the United States has grown by more than 18 times since 2000, although it still accounts for just 4 percent of total U.S. electrical-generation capacity.”

• Gerrymandering

“Many [House] incumbents survived because of a redistricting process that left a record-low number of competitive seats, cloistering Republicans and Democrats together into geographically odd — but politically homogenous — districts.”