2012 United States presidential election

The 2012 United States presidential election took place on Tuesday, 6 November, 2012. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama won a second term after defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Despite starting the year with a pretty bad 44% job approval rating, President Obama cruised to victory on Election Night. Of the nine commonly-named swing states, Obama swept all of them but North Carolina and finished with 332 votes in the Electoral College. He also won the popular vote by about 5 million, and he became only the sixth president in American history—and the first since Dwight Eisenhower—to win over 51% of the popular vote twice. So far, this represents the high-water mark for a Democrat in the Electoral College. To date, this is the last time a Democratic presidential candidate has won Florida, Ohio, or Iowa. No Democrat has matched Obama's 332 electoral votes either. 
Obama won on the back of a smart strategy that had a pretty good understanding what American voters wanted, or rather what they didn't want. Recognizing that the struggling economy and his poor approval ratings were dragging the president down, Obama's campaign cast him as the underdog candidate who was once again running an insurgency campaign against the establishment. That mood for the campaign complemented its core message, which it spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting: that Mitt Romney was a soulless plutocrat who only wanted to use the presidency to pad the pockets of Big Business. 
It helped a lot that this attack was completely, demonstrably true. Romney's 2011 tax returns showed that he had made $13.7 million that year. He was the CEO of a venture capitalist firm. Less than two months before the election, Romney got caught on video telling his rich donors that 47% of American voters were self-entitled losers who mooched off the government. Good one, Mitt. Romney also made a few other out-of-touch gaffes before and during the election cycle, such as "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," or "Let Detroit go bankrupt," or "Corporations are people, my friend." Romney's campaign was a rich conservative's wishlist: calling for an immediate repeal of the Affordable Care Act, championing more tax cuts for the wealthy, and openly considering moves to start privatizing Medicare. All of this played right into the hands of the Obama campaign. While Obama cast himself as a well-meaning president hamstrung by an obstructionist Republican Congress, Romney came out looking like a creature of the muck who didn't give a damn about American voters. It turns out that running a rich asshole and handing him a Reagan-era campaign playbook during the aftermath of the Great Recession wasn't a smart move by Republicans. 
There were other factors that benefited Obama. The president got to mark the one-year anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden right as campaign season started ramping up, ensuring that this victory stayed in voters' minds. Obama's bailout of the automobile industry early in his first term proved massively popular in the critical state of Ohio and was credited with delivering his victory there. Vice President Joe Biden coined a campaign slogan to capitalize on these factors: "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!" 
Part of Obama's campaign did age very poorly, though. When Romney went on CNN to tell Americans that "Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe," Obama's team latched on to the comment and smugly labeled Romney as an out-of-date Cold War relic. It turned out that Romney was right. Very, very right. 
==Major issues==
===The economy===
The years leading up to the 2012 election were an absolute economic shitstorm that helped lead to a Democratic landslide in 2008, growing worse with the eurozone crisis.
===The wars===
Contrary to every election over the past 60 years, the Republicans couldn't attack their opponent for being "soft" on national security. The reason being that Obama was one of the most hawkish Democrats, with major victories such as the killing of Osama bin Laden. Combined with the increasing dislike of the Afghanistan War in the public and its future end date, foreign policy was not a major issue, unlike previous elections.
===God, guns, and gays===
Social issues are often more important when the economy is healthy, and white Christians can go back to telling other people how to live. Romney, a former social liberal, once claimed to be more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy but later edged himself to the right on social issues.
===Health care===
The major provisions of Obamacare would not come into effect until 2014 and a major SCOTUS case that could help define how people view his strength as a president, ultimately upheld the law in a 5–4 decision.
Romney passed a very similar health care bill while governor of Massachusetts. During the health care debates of 2009-2010, he strongly advocated for such a system to be instated nationally, making it difficult for him to attack the President's own health care plan. (Republicans still hate him for that.) Of course, this didn't stop Romney from criticizing Romneycare Obamacare and hoping nobody noticed.
==Democratic Party==
Barack ObamaAge: 44th President of the USA	Advantages: The sitting President; charismatic and eloquent; extremely strong fundraising; had an unparalleled field operation in 2008; issued the order to kill Osama bin Laden; Sizable numbers of Republicans prefer Obama to the alternative,The Right Freaks Out As GOP Poll Finds 20% Of Republicans May Vote For Obama as do ordinary voters.Mitt Romney Shows Record Shortfall in Personal Popularity, ABC An improving economy.Obama’s Re-Election Chances Rise With Signs Economy Improving. Bloomberg Businessweek
Barack ObamaAge: 44th President of the USA	Disadvantages: Obama's historically mixed approval ratings returned once the bump that came from the killing of bin Laden subsided. While Obama's popularity increased around February 2012, public opinion was volatile, especially given the tentative nature of the economic recovery. Obama disappointed many left-wing supporters with such policies as keeping the prison at Guantanamo Bay open, re-signing PATRIOT, a controversial drone warfare program, and also by lacking the Jedi powers that would have been necessary to make the Republican bloc in the Senate not filibuster any bill to create anything resembling universal health care. He couldn't rely again on his 2008 campaign tactics, and was primarily judged on the state of what has been a remarkably sluggish economy.
===Primary challengers===
No notable Democrats came forth to challenge Obama for the nomination, although anti-abortionist Randall Terry, formerly active in the Constitution Party and who had also run for office as a Republican, entered the Democratic primaries against Obama mainly in order to run graphic pro-life ads.Anti-abortion activist announces run against Obama, CNN He ran strongest in Oklahoma and carried several counties. Likewise, a handful of other obscure primary candidates had strong showings and carried a number of counties in Arkansas, Louisiana, and West Virginia. One such candidate, convicted felon Keith Judd, got a whopping 40% of the West Virginia primary vote and won 10 of the state's counties – all while serving a 210-month sentence in federal prison in Texas.Felon beats Obama in ten West Virginia counties "None of the above" ran strongly in Alabama and Kentucky. But those are all states where Obama is unpopular among some rank-and-file Democrats, many of whom are social conservatives, and there were no serious threats to his renomination.
==Republican Party==
Mitt RomneyAge: , appears 40 thanks to hair dye.Former governor of Massachusetts	Advantages: He had some appeal to moderates and independents, and it was hoped that he could put Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, major states that the Republicans have not won in decades, into play. He had significant experience in both business and as Massachusetts governor. Had access to substantial funding both because of his own wealth and the support of super-PACs, and had been outraising Obama's campaign for quite some time.Romney's July fundraising outpaces Obama's. Washington Post VP choice Paul Ryan was meant to bring over disaffected conservatives due to his "experience" with economic policy.
Mitt RomneyAge: , appears 40 thanks to hair dye.Former governor of Massachusetts	Disadvantages: He was too moderate for many Republicans, particularly in the existing political climate. He had flip-flopped on several key conservative issues (notably abortion), and his Mormon faith somewhat also hurt him with the Religious Right. His state health care plan for Massachusetts ("Romneycare") looked an awful lot like "Obamacare." He was derided by some as a man who "looks like the guy who laid you off" (and his company, Bain Capital, a typical private equity firm, actually did "downsize" many employees at its targets). Massachusetts ranked poorly in job creation during his time as Governor.Did Mitt Romney's Massachusetts rank 47th in job creation?, PolitiFact
===Primary challengers===
No one actually liked him, although his programmers have learned well how to simulate human emotion. 
Romney never really captured the hearts of the Republican faithful. His eventual defeat was the deathrattle of the Neocon/"establishment" wing of the party, allowing the gibbering lunatics to take over. His massive war chest, however, meant that his eventual triumph in the primaries was never in doubt. Starting in the summer of 2011, a number of fringe candidates enjoyed a few weeks as the frontrunner: Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and even Rick Santorum positioned themselves as the "not-Romney" of the moment. Of the challengers, Ron Paul, with a fervent base of followers disconnected from GOP orthodoxy, survived the longest; he never actually suspended his campaign for some reason.
==Libertarian Party==
*Gary Johnson - official nominee. Former Republican governor of New Mexico.
==Other parties and independents==
===Theoretically could have won (ballot access to over 270 electoral votes)===
====Green Party====
* Jill Stein - official nominee. Physician.
====Americans Elect====
There were several candidates attempting to win the Americans Elect nomination which was to have been conducted entirely online. On May 15, 2012, Americans Elect announced they were declining to nominate anyone, declaring no candidate had met the threshold for support.Americans Elect Without a Candidate, Politico
===Couldn't have won (Had ballot access to fewer than 270 electoral votes)===
====Constitution Party====
*Virgil Goode - official nominee. Former U.S. Congressman from Virginia, who was in Congress as a Democrat, an independent, and lastly a Republican. What was yet another party switch to him?
====Prohibition Party====
*Jack Fellure - official nominee. Topping the list of reasons why you should have voted for Jack Fellure is "My Presidential Campaign Platform is the Authorized 1611 King James Bible. God Almighty wrote that Book as the supreme constitution and absolute authority..." and you know you don't want to read any more.
====Assorted oddities====
*Rocky Anderson, former-Democrat, mayor of Salt Lake City, running on his own Justice Party ticket.
*Roseanne Barr, entertainer, was the nominee of the California-based Peace and Freedom Party with activist Cindy Sheehan as her running mate.
*The Reform Party-nominated Andre Barnett, a candidate no one has ever heard of from a party nobody remembers anymore.
*Depending on your state, you could have seen candidates on the ballot from the Socialist Party USA (Stewart Alexander), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (Peta Lindsay), the Socialist Workers Party (James Harris), the Socialist Equality Party (Jerry White), and the Freedom Socialist Party (Stephen Durham); as was usual with such dust-ups between the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea, nobody cared. 
*The Communist Party USA, as per their policy since the Soviet Union stopped their funding, refused to run a candidate and endorsed Obama.
==Results==
In general, the problems with Romney had to do with who he was, not how he campaigned. In 2012, the scars of the recession were still fresh, and a guy whose net worth was $250m and who had come up through Bain Capital was going to be a hard sell regardless. Add to the fact that his career up to that point had been as a centrist governor in a blue state, and his positions were closer to Pelosi's than Boehner's.
Romney campaigned relatively well, with no major missteps aside from the 47 percent thing. But he just wasn't the kind of candidate that was going to beat Obama in the first place. He changed his position multiple times on social issues, and much of his campaign relied on the assumption that the economy would stay stagnant. Because of how complex the economy is, this essentially left his campaign up to chance, which can be a major problem.
Adding insult to injury, he had conspicuous bank accounts in several tax havens and was sitting upon years of tax returns. While he did release summaries of the other years, none of these disclosed his effective tax rates, a major sticking point against his campaign. While VP nominees usually "balance out" a ticket (like a fiscal conservative running with a religious conservative), Ryan spelled doom for votes in (at least) FloridaCalled it! as he was a former Randroid and wasn't particularly known for his social conservatism either, therefore costing Romney 29 crucial electoral votes. His proposal to voucherize Medicare wasn't popular across the political spectrum;Medicare Voucher Plan Remains Unpopular, Pew Research Center Romney's plan for Medicare was nearly identical as well.
And never — ever — try to make "we are the 53 percent" a talking point. And defunding PBS.Romney’s Threat to Big Bird Sows Confusion Abroad, and Feeds It at Home, The New York Times And pissing off the entire United Kingdom.
Barack H. Obama II (Democrat)
Willard Mitt Romney (Republican)
Votes
65,915,795
60,933,504
Math
51.1%
47.2%
EVs
332
206
President?
Still yes
nope
==See also==
*2016 U.S. presidential election
*2020 U.S. presidential election
==External links==
*BallotPedia - Lists every issue and candidate for all national and state elections. Provides links to any article or editorial on a topic, links to polls, links to official sites, etc.
*Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat editions.
*Voter preferences by education - Look familiar?
*A Republican and Democratic strategist's take on who would win Florida. Telling, eh?
*Top Conspiracy Theories of 2012, The New Yorker
==References==
Category:United States politics
 
Category:U.S. Presidential campaigns