and you are only partly right that Obama is using the same tactics that led to many election disasters. There are two important differences between then and now.

1. Unlike Kerry, who was often extremely slow to respond to repub smears, Obama responds within minutes, and generally does a good job of nailing the repubs to the wall in his response.

2. Times are vastly different now. Never has a repub president been as reviled as Bush is now, with the highest disapproval figures in history for any president. The repub party as a whole is sinking quickly, as evidenced by polls showing 82% of the American people say we are on the wrong track. There are polls saying that more people identify themselves as dems than ever before, with a better than 20% advantage at this point for dems. Beyond polls, the 3 for 3 victories of dems in traditionally strong repub districts in special elections shows that this is real, not just polling artifacts.

Together, we can see that this is not 1980, 1988, 2000 or 2004. If someone like Gingrich tried to run on a "Contract on America" platform right now, he'd go down in flames like the Hindenburg. Fighting tooth and nail with the repubs now is not only unnecessary, it could be counterproductive. The public is sick of repub lies and smears and divisiveness, and anyone who tries to use those tactics now will see it backfire. Maybe that is why Hillary has higher negatives than any dem.