the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it's all a charade: you get into office, you take a "hands off" approach to the defense budget & the intelligence agencies' budgets, and refuse to put any teeth into any sort of Wall Street regulation, and the powers that be will make sure you get a second term. They will want you to have a second term.
Kerry in '04 ran a terrible campaign... Romney in '12 is running a terrible campaign. In both cases, the incumbent is pretty much a shoe-in.
I just wonder if Romney actually knows the fix is in. Kerry seemed to... he allowed his service record in Vietnam to be dragged through the mud, while Bush - who's record was murky as shit, if not outright disgraceful - was allowed to skate.
more: there is evidence that the NYT, (or it might actually be proven by this point, not sure) that much-vilified bastion of the "liberal" media, agreed to sit on the story of Bush's domestic spying in violation of FISA until after the '04 election was in the bag (they eventually broke the story in '05).
now, we have an incumbent Dem, unpopular among his own base because he's essentially reneged on every campaign promise he made to the left, and universally hated from day one by the right, going to win the election because his politically opponent is a wooden-headed, habitually insulting prick... and his party selected HIM of all people during the midst of an extended recession seeing income disparity at increasingly high levels, consistently high unemployment, stagnating wages for the middle class...
yeah...
