This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Washington • President Barack Obama's victory means his economic vision is still alive and about to drive the political conversation with his adversaries. The legacy of Obama's first term is safe and enshrined to history.

Obama will push for higher taxes on the wealthy as a way to shrinking a choking debt and to steer money toward the programs he wants. He will try to land a massive financial deficit-cutting deal with Congress in the coming months and then move on to an immigration overhaul, tax reform and other bipartisan dreams.

He will not have to worry that his health care law will be repealed, or that his Wall Street reforms will be gutted, or that his name will be consigned to the list of one-term presidents who got fired before they could finish.

Yet big honeymoons don't come twice and Republicans won't swoon.

And if Obama cannot end gridlock, his second term will be reduced to veto threats, empty promises, end runs around Congress and legacy-sealing forays into foreign lands.

Voters decided to put back in place all the political players who have made Washington dysfunctional to the point of nearly sending the United States of America into default for the first time ever.

The president likely will be dealing again with a Republican-run House, whose leader, Speaker John Boehner, declared on election night that his party is the one with the mandate: no higher taxes.

Obama will still have his firewall in the Senate, with Democrats likely to hang onto their narrow majority. But they don't have enough to keep Republicans from bottling up any major legislation with delaying tactics.

So the burden falls on the president to find compromise, not just demand it from the other side.

For now, he can revel in knowing what he pulled off.

Obama won despite an economy that sucked away much of the nation's spirit. He won with the highest unemployment rate for any incumbent since the Great Depression. He won even though voters said they thought Romney would be the better choice to end stalemate in Washington.

He won even though a huge majority of voters said they were not better off than they were four years ago — a huge test of survival for a president.

The suspense was over early because Obama won all over the battleground map, and most crucially in Ohio. That's where he rode his bailout support for the auto industry to a victory that crushed Romney's chances.

The reason is that voters wanted the president they knew. They believed convincingly that Obama, not Romney, understood their woes of college costs and insurance bills and sleepless nights. Exit polls shows that voters thought far more of them viewed Obama as the voice of the poor and the middle class, and Romney the guy tilting toward the rich.

The voice of the voter came through from 42-year-old Bernadette Hatcher in Indianapolis, who voted after finishing an overnight shift at a warehouse.

"It's all about what he's doing," she said. "No one can correct everything in four years. Especially the economy."

Formidable and seasoned by life, Romney had in his pocket corporate success and a Massachusetts governor's term and the lessons of a first failed presidential bid.

But he never broke through as the man who would secure people's security and their dreams. He was close the whole time.

The election was never enthralling, and it was fought for far too long in the shallow moments of negative ads and silly comments.

It seemed like the whole country endured it until the end, when the crowds grew and the candidates reached for their most inspiring words.

"Americans don't settle. We build, we aspire, we listen to that voice inside that says 'We can do better,'" Romney pleaded toward that end.

Americans agreed. They just wanted Obama to take them there.