NB Columns

President Barack Obama narrowly defeated Gov. Mitt Romney in the popular vote 51 percent to 48 percent. In the all-important Electoral College, the difference was larger, with Obama winning 303 electoral votes and Romney 206. Let's not think so much about the election's outcome but instead ask: What's so good about democracy and majority rule?

How many decisions in our day-to-day lives would we like to be made through majority rule or the democratic process? How about the decision to watch a football game or "Law and Order"? What about whether to purchase a Chevrolet Volt or a Toyota Prius? Would you like the decision of whether to have turkey or ham for Thanksgiving dinner to be made through the democratic process? Were such decisions made in the political arena, most of us would deem it tyranny.

Isn't it tragically ironic that the man who rode the perfect storm into public office on the horse of national unity has now perfected the politics of division so spectacularly that he won re-election despite the worst record in decades?

For when you sift through the rubble from the Republican Party's 2012 nuclear catastrophe, you find consistent clues pointing to a simple explanation: We lost because Barack Obama convinced enough voters that he cares more about people than Mitt Romney, a rich white guy who is contemptuous of the poor, women, blacks and seniors. Never mind results; Obama cares and Republicans don't.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'" — President Ronald Reagan

Those wise and yet haunting words spoken by one of our nation's greatest presidents couldn't ring more true — especially today, as winter sets in on an estimated 130,000 of our fellow Americans who are still struggling without power. Many live without heat, hot water or inhabitable homes and question the government's efforts to alleviate their condition.

Here's a which-is-better question for you. Suppose a New Jersey motel room rented for $125 a night prior to Hurricane Sandy's devastation. When the hurricane hits, a husband, wife and their two youngsters might seek the comfort of renting two adjoining rooms. However, when they arrive at the motel, they find that rooms now rent for $250. At that price, they might decide to make do with one room. In my book, that would be wonderful. That decision would make a room available for another family who had to evacuate Sandy's wrath. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and others condemn this as price gouging, but I ask you: Which is preferable for a family seeking shelter — a room available at $250 or a room unavailable at the pre-hurricane price of $125?

It's not the intention of the motel owner to make a room available for another family. He just sees an opportunity to earn more money. It was not the intention of the family of four who made do with just one room to make a room available for another evacuating family. They are just trying to save money. Even though it was no one's intention to make that room available, the room was made available as if intended. That's the unappreciated benefit of freely fluctuating prices. They get people to do voluntarily what's in the social interest — conserve on goods and services that have become scarce.

Obama's first post-election press conference, if you could call it that, tells us a great deal about his attitude and the approach he intends to pursue in his second term, which is the same failed policy mix on steroids.

Obama's re-election, of course, gives him the right to pursue these policies, but it doesn't deny elected Republicans the right or relieve them of the duty to oppose them.

The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair has raised and will continue to raise a number of questions.

First among them (OK, maybe not first, national security being more important, but stay with me) is why should he have resigned? I am always amused when journalists use the words "sex scandal" when writing about such things. Having abandoned most standards for what used to be called "upright behavior," culture now "tsk-tsks" when someone is caught in a compromising position.

We conservatives may never reach a consensus among ourselves as to the main factors that caused our election defeat, but surely we can agree that we must do a better job of selling our ideas.

Never mind, you say. The electorate has irreversibly become a taker class, and conservative ideas of self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual liberties will never appeal to a majority again, especially with demographics working against the GOP.

Jimmy Carter is redeemed! The grinning dunce of yesteryear, who grew into the anile doddering figure of today, lecturing the civilized on all manner of statecraft, has been replaced by the saturnine gaunt prophet, Barack Obama. His sorry performance these past four years he lays to the administration of George W. Bush. The next four years will be a replay of the last four years, and an even graver crisis will confront us then with the domestic economy in a funk and foreign potentates all laughing at us.

The Prophet Obama has demonstrated that you can preside over a wobbly economy and be re-elected. Apparently it is not "the economy, stupid," as James Carville told us. You can suffer a foreign policy disaster (even in the midst of a campaign) and it will be ignored. Jimmy could have been re-elected in 1980 if it were not for the miracle of Ronald Reagan. Had the Republicans nominated a perfectly nice man, say a successful businessman who earned a fortune as large as John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt inherited, Jimmy would have won re-election and the economy would have continued to founder in stagflation and he would have been sending helicopters out into the desert to be destroyed; possibly he would be sending the fleet to be destroyed.

One of the strangest aspects of Election 2012 is that voters are demanding change but didn't change politicians. They left Republicans in charge of the House, elected an even more Democratic Senate and re-elected President Obama. They're unhappy with the status quo in the country but left the political status quo in place.

That doesn't make much sense if you think of campaigns as a choice between competing political issues and ideologies. But campaigns are rarely about such things, and in 2012 a plurality of voters thought both the Obama and Romney campaigns were primarily negative. In fact, just 35 percent thought the president's campaign was generally positive, and only 31 percent thought that of the challenger's effort. The numbers among unaffiliated voters were even lower.