Post date: Nov 07, 2012 4:35:49 PM
President Obama's win of a second term in the White House attracts mixed feelings in New York.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 7, 2012) (REUTERS) - New Yorkers awoke to the re-election triumph of U.S. President Barack Obama over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Obama defeated Romney on Tuesday night (November 6) after a grueling presidential race and used his acceptance speech in front of a huge cheering crowd in Chicago to strike a conciliatory note toward his political opponents.New Yorkers, like Zarit Baghdadlian, have been closely watching the election on television and on social media sites. "I kept on refreshing my page online. CNN.com, it wasn't working at one point. I was very happy with the results," Baghdadlian told Reuters Television.
But in the cold light of the election's morning-after, it was clear that even though voters have given their stamp of approval for a second Obama term, he could have a hard time translating that into a mandate to push forward with his agenda.
"The most uninformed people - we're living in a Kim Kardashian society. He's not a true president. He's a media creation. At least Romney, you know at the best... You know Romney's very good. He actually did something in his life," said Edward Burne who was frustrated with the results.
Other New Yorkers who supported the president at the beginning of his first term seemed cautiously optimistic about Obama's plans for the second term.
"I think that we're on the right track. So now it's just going to keep going. I do worry about Congress though," shared Harry Handler.
Others said they needed to investigate the results more, before deciding how pleased they were about the outcome.
"Once I saw President Obama won, was re-elected, I knew that he got those swing states. But I would be very curious. I would be a lot more curious and then I would see all the speculations made by news. Like, this is going to happen, projected next four years, so on and so forth, I would see what they would be saying," Talin Baghdadlian said.
By early on Wednesday (November 7), Obama had 303 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed to win, to Romney's 206. Florida's close race was not yet declared, leaving its 29 electoral votes still to be claimed.
The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close with Obama taking about 50 percent to 49 percent for Romney after a campaign in which the candidates and their party allies spent a combined $2 billion (USD). But in the state-by-state system of electoral votes that decides the White House, Obama notched up a comfortable victory.