What an Obama victory means for Congress

Nov. 6, 2012: Obama walks through a hallway on Election Day. (AP)

Barack Obama’s re-election victory tonight confirms much of what we already knew: when Republicans run on politics and personality rather than economic principle, they lose.

The sweeping success that re-gained a Republican House majority in 2010 was on a campaign platform of fiscally conservative ideas, opposition to wasteful stimulus spending and government takeovers of private business.

It was symbolic of a larger cultural shift happening across America of citizens getting engaged at all levels of government, taking action to send a clear message to Washington: stop spending money we don’t have.

While some talking heads will try to forecast the results of tonight’s election as an inevitable repeat of the last four years, I strongly disagree. Because of this election cycle and the rise of the freedom movement, the political conversation has fundamentally changed.

Issues currently driving our debt, such as entitlements, that used to be considered untouchable are no longer off the table. Nancy Pelosi originally thought that scaring Democrats and Independents away from Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform was her ticket back to the majority. She was wrong.

In fact, Democrats and establishment Republicans alike discovered in this election cycle that their ticket to victory was through speaking the traditional “Tea Party” language of spending and entitlement reform, tax relief and the need for a serious plan to debt reduction.

This growing community of engaged citizen activists emerged before the 2012 election season, and it’s not going away. The Tea Party and the larger freedom movement that it represents is not a political party, it’s a set of issues. And given that Democrats had to run like fiscal conservatives to win, it’s evident that our ideas are at the dead center of American politics today.

It’s now our job as informed and engaged citizens to hold those elected to the economic promises they made on the campaign trail.

Matt Kibbe is president of FreedomWorks and Author of the book "Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold On America."