2012 Election Shows A Nation That's Still Divided - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com

2012 Election Shows A Nation That's Still Divided

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The election laid bare a dual - and dueling - nation, politically speaking, jaggedly split down the middle on the presidency and torn over much else. It seems you can please only half of the people nearly all of the time.
    
Americans retained the fractious balance of power in re-electing President Barack Obama, a Republican House and a Democratic Senate, altogether serving as guarantors of the gridlock that voters say they despise.
    
Slender percentages separated winner and loser from battleground to battleground, and people in exit polls said yea and nay in roughly equal measure to some of the big issues of the day.
    
Democracy doesn't care if you win big, only that you win, so Tuesday was a day of decision as firmly as if Obama had run away with the race. Democrats are ebullient and, after a campaign notable for its raw smackdowns, words of conciliation and healing are coming from leaders on both sides, starting with the plea from defeated Republican rival Mitt Romney that his supporters pray for the president.
    
But Obama's assertion Wednesday morning that America is "more than a collection of red states and blue states" was more of an aspiration than a snapshot of where the country stands after the most ideologically polarized election in years.

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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