ABSTRACT
As the 2012 presidential election got underway, the answers to two large questions at the center of American politics were shrouded in uncertainty. Or perhaps a more precise way of putting it is that plenty of commentators and strategists—sitting at diverse places on the political spectrum, citing an abundance of evidence and theories—were plenty certain of their answers, but no solid consensus had emerged that seemed especially convincing to fair-minded people who did not have a strong personal or political stake in the argument. By the end of the 2012 election, President Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney—narrow in many of the most pivotal swing states but emphatic in its broad national reach—had started to provide some insight on two tantalizing questions.
