A night full of hope for Romney supporters ended all too soon at the California GOP election event in Costa Mesa, as Republicans expressed feelings of disappointment and uncertainty for their future after President Obama won his four more years in office.

GOP supporters and local candidates came to watch the election coverage at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel in a large ballroom with a band, bar and dance floor. A giant American flag was draped on an adjacent wall as people mingled and chatted under the dim light of chandeliers. Many watched in suspense as Fox News released the latest polling information on swing states and the crowd would let out the occasional cheer when polls showed Romney taking North Carolina and Arizona. 

Sadness, Disappointment and Fear

After Romney lost key swing states such as Ohio and Virginia and Obama was eventually announced the winner of election 2012, the tone of the room dampened. The loss was especially personal for LAUSD teacher and Carson city resident Sejuli Fa’auliulito Meni, who worries for her own job security.

“I’m so disappointed,” said Meni. “I’m a teacher and for the last three years I’ve gotten lay off notices every single year. As the economy has tanked, it’s affected everyone in this country.” 

Meni, 47, has seen many of her friends lose jobs and homes and she’s tired of the way that Democrats have been running the country. 

“We can’t continue to live off the government,” she said. “The economy has got to grow and I’m very afraid that it’s not going to… I have relatives and friends who are business people and they feel the squeeze, no one wants to expand, no one wants to grow, so it’s just so, so disappointing. I was so sure that we were going to win.”

And while Meni is a middle class American, she doesn’t see that conflicting with her conservative party. She said that successful people who build corporations are the ones who provide jobs. 

“They’ve earned what they have I don’t begrudge anyone what they have earned honestly. Demonizing success and punishing success is not something I believe is productive or helpful.”

Divided on Proposition 30

One of the tougher issues on the ballot is Proposition 30, Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative to raise sales tax and income tax on the wealthy in order to fund education. Meni felt conflicted on this particular issue because she’s seen the affect of budget cuts on her school district.

“In one sense I was very much against it,” she said, “but we’re looking at our school year being cut 20 full days.”

At the same time though, Meni doesn’t believe in giving more money to government because who knows where it will go. 

“It’s backlogged at higher levels,” she said. “It doesn’t reach the students, it doesn’t reach the classrooms where we really need things.”

As for students, 17 year old Manuel Barriga has been a part of a politically active family all his life, as his aunt is running for school board in Santa Ana and his mother previously ran for office four years ago. 

Though he is just a year shy of being eligible to vote, Barriga is up to date on the issues. His family is Republican, but he admits his straddles between the parties on certain issues. One of those issues happens to be Proposition 30. Barriga has seen budget cuts affect his own school.

“[At Godinez Fundamental High] we have furlough days,” he said. “We're just hoping that prop 30 would pass. We don't know where the money’s going, we're just hoping that it will go to the schools....A lot of kids are like ‘Oh, no school’ but we want school, we want to get ahead, we America to go back to the number one spot it used to be in education.”  

However, Williamson "Bill" Evers who is a research scholar for the Hoover Institute at Stanford and former Romney advisor on education said Proposition 30 is not what it seems.

“So, imagine somebody takes a gun and they point it at somebody's baby sister and they say, ‘I'm gonna pull this trigger unless you give me your money,’” said Evers. “Well, your baby sister here is the public school system, which opinion poll data shows, is one of the few things that the public likes about what the state government does. So, here's an extortion. Instead of spreading the cuts around to highways and mental health programs and prisons and whatever, whatever, he concentrated on the schools and then he said, ‘Give me more money or I will cut the thing you like.’  In political science, we have a name for this called: "firemen first". It's a tactic that politicians do in order to get more tax money.” 

The Future

As for what will happen next, some Republicans are wary under Obama’s presidency.

“I’m very afraid to see what happens in this next four year,” said Meni. “I was so excited, I thought finally I don’t have to be worried about losing my job.”

Randy Coe, 41, a real estate broker said that Romney would have been the beginning of something positive. 

“My feelings are that the country is not on the right track,” said Coe. “I believe with a leadership change it still would be difficult trying to change all the problems our country has, but hey it’s a start.” 

 

Reach staff reporters Judy Wang here and Tasbeeh Herwees here.