Title: Double down
Description: For Obama, the victory he achieved meant even more to him than the one he had pulled off four years earlier. In 2008, he believed, voters had bet on a hope. In 2012, they passed positive judgment on what he'd actually done, allowing him to avert a loss that would have rendered his presidency a failed, one-term accident. For the Republicans, on the other hand, 2012 not only offered a crushing verdict, but an existential challenge: to rethink and reconstitute the party or face irrelevance.
Subjects: Presidents, Election, Presidential candidates, Obama, barack, 1961-, Romney, mitt, 1947-, Presidents, united states, election, 2012, Political campaigns, United states, politics and government, 2009-2017, History, Politics and government
Places: United States
People: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama
Time periods: 2012