Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of November 7, 2012. Give us your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11 am.

Spencer Platt, Getty Images
Spencer Platt, Getty Images
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1. Now What?

Now what? That's the question Republicans will be asking for a while now. President Obama had a huge win last night and obviously ran a better campaign than what most people thought.

Republicans will now look to blame someone or something and we will spend time talking about that the rest of the week. However, it's important to look to the future and it's something that the Republican party must do quickly. The race for 2016 will start... well now and Republicans have to figure out who they want their leader to be. Marco Rubio? Bobby Jindal? Jeb Bush? Who will be the leader of the GOP?

Republicans have to grow a pair and take the fight to the Democrats. Republicans must argue that the GOP isn't the party of old white men. For too long Democrats have been successful at branding the Republicans as such.

What is the future of the Republican party? That's something the GOP will have to figure out. What is the future for this country? I do not know, but we must keep fighting. I know I will.

2. Mandate? (link)

Does President Obama now have a mandate? That National Journal says no.

Barack Obama won a second term but no mandate. Thanks in part to his own small-bore and brutish campaign, victory guarantees the president nothing more than the headache of building consensus in a gridlocked capital on behalf of a polarized public.

If the president begins his second term under any delusion that voters rubber-stamped his agenda on Tuesday night, he is doomed to fail.

Mandates are rarely won on election night. They are earned after Inauguration Day by leaders who spend their political capital wisely, taking advantage of events without overreaching. Obama is capable—as evidenced by his first-term success with health care reform. But mandate-building requires humility, a trait not easily associated with him.

“The mandate is a myth,” said John Altman, associate professor of political science at York College of Pennsylvania. “But even if there was such a thing as a mandate, this clearly isn’t an election that would produce one.”

I can promise you this. The President and Democrats will treat this win as a mandate. If for no other reason than because it was a blow out in the Electoral College. Obama can't get everything he wants, but he can get pretty close.

3. Where to Put Your Money Now  (link)

Worried about where to put your money now that Obama has won re-election? According to the Wall Street Journal, there are plenty of options.

Despite his threats to soak the wealthy for more taxes, despite Fed Chairman’s attack on savers, despite even his threat to kill special treatment for dividends, institutional investors have thrown themselves at Obama’s feet as they have not done in the first term of any president in the past century.

You could look it up. The S&P 500 has gained 76% since his inauguration in January 2009, while the Nasdaq 100 is up 128%.

Compare that to the S&P 500’s -13% decline and the Nasdaq 100’s -45% wipeout in the first term of his predecessor, George W. Bush; or the mere 25% gain in the first term of conservative icon Ronald Reagan; or even the 60% gain in the halcyon early 1990s in the first term of Bill Clinton.

 

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the President’s health care initiative, set out new mandates, subsidies and credits to employers and individuals to increase Americans’ access to health care. Upon its passage in March 2010, investors began boosting the shares of drug makers, insurance providers and hospitals because they all suddenly had a lot more paying customers, courtesy of the government and taxpayers.

Shares of Pfizer PFE +0.53% , for example, had fallen 50% during the eight years of the Bush Administration, January 2001 to January 2009. In contrast, its shares are up 70% during the Obama Administration, almost in a straight line. Sixty-four percent of the gains in the maker of Viagra, Zoloft and Lipitor have come since ACA passed.

I'm not so sure that the market loves Obama. I guess we will see today how the market reacts.

4. Voter ID (link)

It really is unbelievable that we don't have to show an ID to vote in this country. You have to show an ID to buy beer, get on a plane, get money out of your checking account, etc. However, to Democrats showing an ID to vote is just too much. It's not just Republicans who are amazed by this. It's also foreign election officials.

"It's very difficult to transfer this system as it is to any other country. This system is built according to trust and this trust needs a lot of procedures and a lot of education for other countries to adopt it," Elabbar said.

The most often noted difference between American elections among the visitors was that in most U.S. states, voters need no identification. Voters can also vote by mail, sometimes online, and there's often no way to know if one person has voted several times under different names, unlike in some Arab countries, where voters ink their fingers when casting their ballots.

The international visitors also noted that there's no police at U.S. polling stations. In foreign countries, police at polling places are viewed as signs of security; in the United States they are sometimes seen as intimidating.

Thoughts?

Today’s Guest:

Congressman Randy Neugebauer in studio at 9am

Larry Williams at 9:30am

Other Top Stories:

These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11 am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.

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