Breaking down the campaigns

The Obama re-election drive bore only a faint resemblance to the "hope and change" campaign that brought him to power in 2008, a time of deepening financial crisis and voter dissatisfaction after eight years of a Republican administration in Washington.

This time, Obama effectively abandoned his high-minded appeal in favor of a pre-emptive, bare-knuckled attempt to disqualify his Republican challenger. Throughout the summer, the president and his super PAC allies unleashed a relentless attack on Romney’s character, his reluctance to more fully disclose his personal taxes, his career as a private-equity executive at Bain Capital and his conservative stance on abortion rights and contraception. Independent fact-checkers judged more than a few of Obama’s charges as whoppers, including his claim that Romney, as governor, outsourced jobs to China, and an inflated figure for the annual cost to seniors of Romney’s Medicare overhaul plan.

In its overall thrust, the anti-Romney effort was similar to the ultimately successful campaign waged by President George W. Bush and the Republicans against Democratic challenger John Kerry in the tight 2004 election, which also returned a threatened incumbent to the White House. That election, the first of the post-9/11 era, revolved largely around national security and fighting global terrorism.

In this year's campaign, national security played no significant role at all. Republicans were unable to go after Obama with one of their most reliable anti-Democratic themes—weakness on defense policy. The president had essentially inoculated himself with a successful gamble: ordering the military mission that killed al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Instead, the economy and jobs were the overwhelming concerns of American voters, with nearly 8 percent unemployment on election day a slightly higher rate than when Obama took office.

The president's campaign effort to distract attention from economic issue s appeared to be working, thanks largely to the continued negative assault on Romney and a successful Democratic convention that was highlighted by Bill Clinton's persuasive defense of Obama’s record and the former president’s contention that a President Romney would merely revive the policies that had gotten the country into economic trouble in the first place.

The long campaign's cost soared into the billions, much of it spent on negative ads, some harshly so.

In a months-long general election ad war that cost nearly $1 billion, Romney and Republican groups spent more than $550 million and Obama and his allies $381 million, according to organizations that track advertising.

According to the exit poll, 53 percent of voters said Obama was more in touch with people like them, compared to 43 percent for Romney.

About 60 percent said taxes should be increased, taking sides on an issue that divided the president and Romney. Obama wants to let taxes rise on upper incomes, while Romney does not.

Other than the battlegrounds, big states were virtually ignored in the final months of the campaign. Romney wrote off New York, Illinois and California, while Obama made no attempt to carry Texas, much of the South or the Rocky Mountain region other than Colorado.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14