Been reading through all of the election post-mortems, just trying to learn as much about why President Free-Stuff won and what this portends for our country. What I’ve found is ….interesting.
One of the better pieces thus far was from Slate.com, of all places. Not one of my usual ‘go-to’ sites, but I can’t argue with much of John Dickerson’s assessment.
Of the nine battleground states that were up for grabs, Obama won seven of them, losing only North Carolina (Florida remains to be called). But while Obama won those states, he didn’t crush it; he won instead, a string of precise narrow victories. He didn’t win because his leadership during Hurricane Sandy blew all those swing votes his way (though it may have helped). The president won because he ran a permanent campaign, keeping his offices open in the battleground states from his 2008 campaign, tending his coalition assiduously, and because he relentlessly defined his opponent. His was the better campaign. The Democratic candidate of “hope and change” beat the big business Republican in the trenches, in one state after another.
Two Heads are Better Than One 