Local Democrats in the Baranof Hotel cheered Tuesday night when major news organizations projected President Barack Obama had won reelection. Shortly before 9 p.m., before Alaska’s votes even showed up on the state website and in the national count, they heard GOP candidate Mitt Romney congratulate Obama on his win and wish him luck during his next term in the White House.
President Barack Obama took the stage to accept his second term as president a little more than two hours after CNN announced his win. At 7:18 p.m. Obama had won more than 272 electoral votes he needed to earn another four years in the oval office.
By 9:15 p.m. the Romney backers meeting at the Baranof Hotel had mostly disbursed. Obama’s supporters hung out by televisions in the hotel bar and in an Obama gathering near the front desk.
Newly elected Assembly Member Loren Jones said watching an election is more stressful than running for office.
“This is a little more nerve wracking,” Jones said. “I’ve only got one vote and I’m not campaigning. Just stand and watch.”
Jones said he watched the national race from home and came down to the Baranof conference room to watch the state results roll in.
LaRae Vons lives in Juneau and came down to the Baranof to hear Obama’s acceptance speech. “I am a Barack fan,” Vons said. “He’s for the people. There is no way I can think about the other guy.”
Grace Snider said she is traveling from Willow for a brain institute meeting, is staying at the Baranof, and saw the Obama gathering and stopped by.
“It seemed like a good place to be,” Snider said. “I’m glad to be in good company.”
Snider said she had voted absentee before her trip. She wore an Obama shirt and said she’d voted for the incumbent.
Statewide she said she would like to see a change from Rep. Don Young, but she said she doubted that would happen. The tallies would prove her right.
Once the national chapter in the election was over, Alaska voters still had other issues to decide, including who would represent the state in the U.S. Congress. Young won his 21st term, weighing in shortly before 11 p.m. with a 64 percent lead over Sharon Cissna’s 22.8 percent with almost 27 percent of precincts counted. Young climbed to 63 percent with half the voted counted.
U.S. Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski were quick to weigh in on the presidential race.
“I look forward to continuing to build on the important progress we have made not only on Arctic development, but on other critical Alaska issues like supporting our veterans, balancing the budget, permitting mines and improving education,” said Begich, who is a Democrat. “I am also happy to see that voters have sent common-sense moderates from across the country to join me in the Senate. Not only do we share common ground on policies, but we have a like-minded approach of reaching across party lines, rolling up our sleeves, and looking for solutions. Tonight’s results also sent a clear message to those who want to overrun our elections with unlimited secret money and divisive politics. I am hopeful the newly elected group of senators and representatives will join me in pushing for a bipartisan, balanced and swift approach to cutting our federal deficit.”
Murkowski, a Republican, congratulated Obama as well.
“While the presidential race was hard fought on both sides, I think this election process has demonstrated that Americans want us to work together to solve the difficult problems facing our nation,” Murkowski said. “In his second term, I am hopeful that President Obama will see the value of pragmatism over partisanship. Both parties created the challenges we face today, and the solutions can only be found through collaborative efforts - good ideas don’t come with a party label. I encourage President Obama and his administration to work with Congress, represent all of America and make a better tomorrow for our nation.”
Shortly after 9 p.m., results from Alaska’s statewide races trickled in.
Alaska voters in early numbers chose the Romney/Ryan ticket over Obama/Biden, leading by about 56 percent to 39 percent with 63 percent of the vote counted.
State Sen. Hollis French was in a tight race with Republican challenger Bob Bell, trailing by just over two percentage points with about half the precincts counted. French, a Democrat, is part of a bipartisan coalition targeted by some Republican leaders and is an outspoken critic of Gov. Sean Parnell’s oil tax reduction strategy. Bell led by five points with more than 70 percent of precincts counted.
Redistricting forced an election in Senate District Q between incumbents Bert Stedman and Albert Kookesh. With 44 percent of the vote in, Stedman had 50,14 percent and Kookesh 49.64 percent but the tide turned quickly against Kookesh and with 88 percent of precincts in Stedman held more than 65 percent of the vote.
In Anchorage’s Senate District M, a similar situation pitted Anna Fairclough against Bettye Davis, but with almost half the vote counted Davis trailed Fairclough by a large margin, Fairclough gaining 58 percent of the vote by 10:17 p.m.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
• Contact Managing Editor John R. Moses at 523-2265 or at john.moses@juneauempire.com.
Comments (90)
Add commentI am disappointed that Obama won
I have a difficult time calling him President Obama.
And, I turn off the media or leave the room when I hear him speak. I just do not trust that man or his administration. Cannot seem to overcome this feeling I have about him.
To my colleagues, friends, and family members who voted for him - I hope I am wrong. To my colleagues, friends, and family members who voted for anyone else - I feel your pain! Do not despair...
Alaska is in big trouble!
The Republicans now have enough seats in the State Senate to pass the massive tax cut for the Oil Industry. This means the
State will begin draining the budget reserve and within 5 years it
will be gone. Then there be huge across the board layoffs of State workers in Juneau. This will happen on top of huge cuts in the Federal work force because of the deficit. If you own property in Juneau sell out before the collapse.
Difficult time
Believing that, in America, better than half the population is so into getting FROM government, than giving TO the nation, they would vote for a man who leaves his soldiers, in the field, under fire, to die, and he could have done something! The resources were there, and the time to act was there, he just let them die! America is now a paper tiger, and the world knows it!
That's so cute
listening to republicans snivel about Obama...
Cheer up! You get to try out your ideas in Alaska now, as glasseye points out----Let's see if Big Oil can save you from a communist takeover.
Doen't matter anymore
The election is over. Get over it. Time to rebuild the east coast and work together to get things done. The GOP needs to stop the mentality of making the president a one term president and think about how they can be a party for everyone. Not just the white middle/upper class male who believes in legitimate rape.
zero sense of urgency
should be everyone's concern: .
exhibit A: Hurricane Sandy & nor'easter;
exhibit B: Benghazi debacle (though will likely go away; that was so yesterday);
exhibit C: remember US Cmdr in AF requesting troops that POTUS sat on for 3 months? Do more with less during a hot war.
exhibit D: vacation days vs. work days (His, not yours, silly goose)
what was campaign slogan? Forward? With history of inaction, indecision & inability to prioritize, it is safe to check back on movement Forward every yr or so. Best to keep extremely low expectations. Oh, exhibit E: ACA - the crowning achievement. Unseemly things keep crawling out of pages of that one...I think the full measure of its achievement is whether it delivers what it was meant to deliver. Check back in 4 yrs.
Hug em and cut em
from page one - very well said sir.
I also hope we can get back to the civility of making deals and working together for the good of everyone, not just the party bigwigs.
Harder Right
I wish it weren't so but I don't think civilty and compromise is in the cards. The big donors will steer the Republican party even harder to the right. They will still be a regional force. Especially in those state where you can buy a Confederate flag at every gas station. They can't gerrymander an entire state or the country so they will keep losing the presidency and senate by keeping harder right. Texas will most likely be blue by 2016.
Hillary in 2016!
harder right is a relative perspective
especially if the body politic veers more to left -- which is likely with assistance from the media.
Tax
It was also inaccurate for Romney to claim that those who don't pay federal income taxes would vote for President Obama "no matter what." Nearly all states with a high percentage of Americans that don't pay federal income taxes vote Republican in presidential elections, according to the the Wall Street Journal.
Moreover, Republican policy -- on the part of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- has pushed to move poorer people off of the federal income tax rolls, as noted by the Murdoch News' Edna Klein and Newsweek's Matt Zeitlin.
As for entitlements, contrary to Romney's portrayal, more than 90 percent of entitlement benefits go to the elderly, seriously disabled or members of working households, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Who is this Romney?
and why do you keep bringing him up?
You're absolutely correct Grendel
He was yesterdays news.....yesterday.
and yet
I cant help but think some straight-faced believer is going to pin the next piece of bad news on Romney.
Indeed, Grendel
I'm already hearing many straight-faced believers in the GOP trying to blame Romney for the implosion.
Think about it. You had an incumbent who was most improbably elected in 2008, only with the tailwinds of a phenomenally incompetent and unpopular GWB, an imploding economy, and Sarah Palin as an opponent. And now in 2012, with an economy still in the tank and a far more capable and well funded opponent, he still wins a decisive victory. How did the republicans f___ this up?
You can't really give credit to Obama, as you've pointed out with regularity. He's had a mediocre term and ran a lackluster campaign. Romney represented many of the core values of the GOP - he was religious, had solid family values, had a solid resume of accomplishments, was a photogenic and articulate figurehead, and most importantly, he had the one attribute that's most highly admired, nay, worshiped(!) by nearly all of the party faithful: he's really, really rich.
The demographics played some role, if you make the assumption that minorities only make decisions based on skin color. But in reality, the republicans' loss was entirely self-inflicted. The stomping on such no-brainer legislation as the Dream Act is a great example. The kow-towing to the fundies. The toadying up to wealthy and corporate interests, coupled with the complete disdain of the bottom 50%.
Florida will be a swing state in 2016. Arizona might be too. Texas is heading that way as well. The GOP is going the way of the Whigs...bald.
The republican party needs to do a whole bunch of cosmetic surgery, but that likely won't be enough. They should take a page from Dick Cheney's book - undergo a heart transplant. And this surgery is going to happen in full view, without an anesthetic. It should be entertaining to watch.
The long story, short.
The Mitch McConnell led Republicans played every card in their one term deck. After four years, they still weren't able to disparage Obama enough to regain the White House, or gain a majority in the Senate.
@Lat
1. Good morning;
2. thoughful post, but inherently wrong direction. GOP does not need to change image and shift to the center-left -- then it turns into 2 parties trying to one-up each other on who kisses more Mexican babies and blaming each other for killing the middle class;
3. (and if you thought this campaign set the bar low, stand-by for Ugly!);
4. with election now over, GOP is in best position to articulate a defining platform because now it does not HAVE to stand behind its candidate and mimp 'me, too'
side note to (3): lots of bloodletting in this election, character assassination like never before, and the lines didnt shift. Grudges run deep in atavistic DC. Forecast calls for messy paybacks.
Petreus resigns
citing extramarital affair....I dont buy it. Not in an administration so skewed that half of them need help getting their pants screwed on every morning and the other half sits on the ice pack.
simply does not add up. He's cutting the lines and running before something caves.
@Grendel
Responses:
Direction: They don't have to alter course, but if they don't they'll continue to be further marginalized. Numbers don't lie.
Center-left: No, they don't need to shift that far, but center-anything would be a good start. Right now their needle is pegged to the far-right.
Campaign low-bar: Don't know about that. I don't own a TV so I missed 99% of the 'campaigning', for which I am eternally grateful.
Grudges: Hardly. You're talking about DC, where allegiances shift like the wind. You see some real paybacks when one side has overwhelming dominance - not the case right now.
Platform: So that party platform that crafted for the campaign was all...a show? Say it isn't so! The fiscal cliff is going to force their hands. They were just handed a significant defeat by the voters. If they want to dig in on their 'No new taxes' pledge, they'll pay again in 2014.
Petraeus: You're kidding, right? He's not going to pull the plug under those circumstances unless he has to. It's common for officials to resign after the election - he could have walked without saying a word about the affair. a) He probably approached Obama prior to the election, then held off so this didn't become a political football; and b) Maybe he harbors political ambitions and wanted to get this out in the open as early as possible so it's no longer news when he makes his run, and it doesn't crop up as a campaign embarrassment.
to Lat
we can agree that what happens in a campaign should be like that saying about Vegas -- shouldn't matter when you return to real life. Problem is, this time around such thuggery emerged -- bare assaults without implication, and even pretentious decency went out the window. Problem is, the American public bought into it as "that's how it's done." Yes, indeed demographics have changed - shifted from ideas to the base & uncultured. Bygones.
We dont know enough about circumstances with Gen Petraeus, but there are more graceful ways to exit than saying, "Oh, I just remembered - an affair is violation of the UCMJ, professional ethics, cause for blackmail of the CIA Director, and the ultimate disrepect for my wife of 37 yrs. I better go public with this and leave, but after the election."
No...
What Romney said can be left in Vegas. But the party platform was crafted with broad representation by the party. It's too big to be swept under the rug.
Petraeus - yes, pretty graceless. There's a back story there. Already being blackmailed so had become a security liability? Maybe the wife was putting the hammer down. I predict he'll resurface in about 2 years, hinting toward making a WH run.
Regarding...
...the thuggery and baseness, I probably missed most of that due to my media choices. But the likes of Limbaugh has been a base thug for decades now, so not sure what's changed.
Forget the campaign platform
there's no accountability for the platform, which is worth as much as the slogan card they penned it on; then there's the "bullshitter-liar" charged language. In the past, the latter should be forgotten because in the past the attacks were substantive, or innuendo. This time around, the bar went under the trough. If that's how it's done, what the new expectation is, then the dynamics have indeed changed. I shudder to think where we go after electing a coke-snorting, disavowed alcoholic, silver spoonfed type -- twice!
Oh wait, that was 2004. Wow, we as a nation doubled down on that prospect and dug deeper for community organizer with an amazing ability to not recall his own past life, despite 2 memoirs.
When no one has a clean past, it's no longer about ideas. It's packaging the best crappackage against the other one. Give the people what they want.
Didn't you know, Lat? It's
Didn't you know, Lat? It's only thuggery when liberals dare to insinuate that people who tell lies are liars. When conservatives call women [filtered word] or tell black people to know their place, they're being simply being plain-spoken patriots.
For years, Republicans have been bullies and hypocrites. Democrats have finally grown a collective backbone, and like any good bully who chooses to pick on someone a little too big, Republicans are now running to mommy complaining about how MEAN those poopie-head Democrats are.
Don't sweat it, Grendel
It'll probably improve in 2016.
Think about this matchup: A highly decorated and capable serial philanderer, running against a highly accomplished and capable... wife of a serial philanderer.
Think the pundits and muckrakers wouldn't have fun with that one?
where'd you come from?
@PP: I suppose those new black panthers that turned up this time were just cheerleading? I am convinced that deep down you are simply mean-spirited.
no longer @PP: I'm not complaining about the outcome. I respect the process, sure. More to the point, this demographics argument is not about kissing Mexican babies; it's more and more about distracting the electorate from it's escapist reality, and that requires ingenuity to get a numb electorate's attention.
Classic example
Do a quick google of Ted Nugent's latest public outbursts.
Until the GOP can cleanse itself of this type of cretin, it will (justifiably) be labeled the party of violent vulgarity. The party lacks the caliber of leaders that have the fiber to stand up to someone like this. So he'll be applauded by the coarser swath of the GOP spectrum. And thoughtful moderates will flee any association with the party.
Yeah, that's it, Grendel.
Yeah, that's it, Grendel. Black Panthers. That's why Obama won. Because he's black and had all his Black Panther buddies suppress the votes of honest white people. Not only that, but they were INVISIBLE Black Panthers who were totally suppressing people's votes with STEALTH.
You must be completely unaware of how racist that kind of ludicrous BS sounds. That is sad. And it explains why you people are hopelessly clueless as to why your power is waning.
hip pocket analysis of the Nouveaux Dumb
the dominant character trait of the Nouveaux Dumb is sarcastic absurdity. The classic strawman argument turned on its head; not meant to convince or dispel, just demean.
also, there is a trend among the Nouveaux Dumb where they feel compelled to turn everything into a race issue in an effort to prove they are not racists. Not only is it mean-spirited, but also twisted and indicative of low self-esteem.
Uh, Grendel
I'll assume that last post wasn't targeted toward me. But I will point out that you were the one to bring up the Black Panthers first, in the same post as the "Mexican babies".
Am I safe to assume the Black Panthers were an issue that was brought up almost exclusively on FoxNews during the election? Again, without a TV I'm ignorant of these serious threats to our democracy...but a quick Google search brings up, over and over, the one unarmed guy with a beret in Philly opening doors for people...as reported by FoxNews.
Was there a bigger issue here that I'm missing? Please enlighten, since you brought the issue up.
Yes, Lat?
here's the issue: new black panthers were at the Phil voting station in 2008 and their actions were determined to be intimidating. Something to do with batons and inciteful language. Anyway, same character is at the voting station in 2012 dressed like black panther. Why? image make-over? Suppose the New KKK showed up in 2008, and then again in 2012. Dont both have legacy of racial violence? What is the difference? Dont answer those question marks, just make the call yourself.
Do I have to explain why kissing Mexican babies is an appropriate allegory for embracing immigration reform, or do we need to tiptoe around that one because we dont want to appear insensitive? I'm insensitive. I dont like kids. I dont care where they come from -- they all cry, poop, they're snotty, and as they get older they get expensive. I know, because I have four. But I'm not going to yell slurs, make threats, or accelerate toward a kid in a crosswalk because she's Mexican, or Vietnamese, or Cuban. And it's bad policy to bend American values, like respect for the law, to accommodate lawbreakers.
How about we talk about it like it is? Mexican babies come from Mexican mothers that at some point were in Mexico. What? Should we call them not-yet-American-youth-that-have-undocumented-origins-from-a-country-south-of-CA-AZ-NM-TX? Oops - can we put "NM" in there or does that jeopardize our non-racial efforts? Give me a break.