So, this is the best that that "great" intellect Michael Barone can come up with? Pathetic [View all]

[cali]

Obama Wins by Going Negative and Turning Out Base

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Obama owes most of his electoral vote majority of 332 to negative campaigning. His strategists barraged the target states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia with attack ads against Romney for months.

The ads took a toll. Preliminary figures show that outside the eight clear target states, Obama's percentage declined by 2.8 points. In the firewall states, it was down by only 1.4 points and in five other target states by only 2.1 points.

That enabled him to win those three firewall states by a total of about 250,000 votes. A 2.8 percent swing everywhere would have left him narrowly ahead in the popular vote and with 290 electoral votes.

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So Obama owes most of his victory margin to negative personal campaigning, while Republicans held the House despite -- or because of -- their opposition to big-government policies.

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http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2012/11/12/obama_wins_by_going_negative_and_turning_out_base/page/2