Week In The News: Obama Reelected, GOP Shaken, Nor'easter

Obama wins four more years.  A shaken GOP looks ahead.  And snow moves in as folks pick up from Sandy.

When the week began, we were the “toss-up” nation.  Could be Romney, could be Obama.  Who knew?  And then, we knew.  And it’s Barack Obama, for a second term.  The election was not, in the end, such a squeaker.  Are we still divided?  Yes.  In Congress, certainly.

But even there, sounds – maybe  – of room to talk this week as the fiscal cliff looms.  Republicans, reading election results and thinking again.  Democrats, calmed for the moment and considering.  And Sandy’s wreckage, now chilled.  Big week.

This hour, On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-Tom Ashbrook

Karen Tumulty, national political reporter for the Washington Post.

Major Garrett, White House correspondent for National Journal.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

Washington Post "Three states voted to legalize same-sex marriage, which is the civil rights cause of our times. One day we will look back and wonder how people could have been so willing to deny equal treatment under the law to a small minority — and Tuesday will stand as one of the most important moments marking the end of that cruelty."

New York Times "A couple of decades ago, Prince William County was one of the mostly white, somewhat rural, far-flung suburbs where Republican candidates went to accumulate the votes to win elections in Virginia."

Weekly Standard "Republicans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.  In 2010, they failed to win the Senate when it was theirs for the taking. Now they’ve lost the White House to President Obama, despite his poor record and the likelihood things won’t get any better in his second term.  And they failed again to capture the Senate, though a takeover was initially thought to be a cinch."