In Tuesday's victory, Barack Obama not only won his second term.
He protected his first.
At a tumultuous victory celebration in Chicago early Wednesday morning, the re-elected president called for bipartisanship in addressing four ambitious priorities over the next four years: reducing the deficit, overhauling the tax code, revising immigration laws and reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
Left unsaid was the reality that he also can now implement the hard-won achievements from his first four years — the health-care law called the Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street regulatory regime known as Dodd-Frank — which Republican rival Mitt Romney had promised to begin dismantling "on Day One" in the Oval Office.
"If he had lost there would have still been the legacy coming from the fact he was the first African American to have won the White House," says Robert Dallek, one of a group of historians who has met privately at three White House dinners with Obama. "But now he can hammer into place the Affordable Care Act that would have been in jeopardy if he had lost the election. Now it will be a fixed and featured part of his presidential terms."
He protected his first.
At a tumultuous victory celebration in Chicago early Wednesday morning, the re-elected president called for bipartisanship in addressing four ambitious priorities over the next four years: reducing the deficit, overhauling the tax code, revising immigration laws and reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
Left unsaid was the reality that he also can now implement the hard-won achievements from his first four years — the health-care law called the Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street regulatory regime known as Dodd-Frank — which Republican rival Mitt Romney had promised to begin dismantling "on Day One" in the Oval Office.
"If he had lost there would have still been the legacy coming from the fact he was the first African American to have won the White House," says Robert Dallek, one of a group of historians who has met privately at three White House dinners with Obama. "But now he can hammer into place the Affordable Care Act that would have been in jeopardy if he had lost the election. Now it will be a fixed and featured part of his presidential terms."