I think Obama has slowly been playing chess 8 steps ahead. Checkmate is very close.

[merrily]

101. "Don't ask don't tell" was not gone suddenly.

Obama did not outplay Hillary.

He was chosen before the primaries because party leaders like Harry Reid though that Hillary had too much baggage. The fix was in from the start. Although, his campaign team was indeed better than hers, IMO.

Romney was a bad candidate with a bad campaign and Obama had the advantage of both incumbency and a superior campaign team. Also, no President in the history of the U.S. who ran for re-election while the country was at war has ever been defeated. Never. (Maybe that is why we now have a war on terrorism that will never, ever end?)

It's easy to assume that Obama plays three dimensional chess if you also always explain his shortcomings as being totally out of any human President's control, as with the public option.

In fact, almost any assumption is easy to make. Having an assumption withstand critical analysis, however, is not that easy.