Post election

I read a couple of economic newsletters to keep abreast of what is going on, both in the U.S. and around the world. In one such newsletter, Things that make you go hmmm, there are some short articles attributed to other sources (authors, magazines, etc.) and one of them I read recently dealt with the U.S. election of 2012. There were several paragraphs that I found particularly interesting. This article is attributed to Andy Xie, a name I don't know.

"The role of the government was the issue during the contest. The Republicans campaigned on shrinking the government, the Democrats on a caring government...

 "Romney won the traditional Republican states that are poorer than the national average and are net beneficiaries of federal tax dollars. Voting for smaller government is hardly in their best interest. Also, he won among the older population who are more dependent on Medicare and Social Security. Voting for a smaller government is hardly in their interest either.

"The election was more about race than anything else. Romney won 70 percent of the white vote. Obama won over 90 percent of the black vote and over 70 percent of the Hispanic and Asian vote. The tilt of the Asian vote toward Obama demonstrates the importance of race in this election. In 1992 Bill Clinton won only 31 percent of the Asian vote. Asian Americans have relatively high incomes and are least dependent on government help. They should be a natural constituency of small-government Republicans. That they are not shows that the raison d'etre of the Republican party is not economics anymore.

 "The party is a coalition of business interests who want low taxes and fewer regulations and evangelical Christian voters. The later block delivered all states Romney won. It shows what's important in the Republican party. As demography tilts further toward the Obama coalition, the Republican party can compete by becoming more like the Democrats, or shift to extremist tactics. I'm afraid the later is more likely."