No, Team-Obama vastly overestimated their own skills and the skills of their candidate.
Look at Obama's election record. This is really the first campaign where he's actually had a decent challenger--not a great one--just a decent one.
True in his Senate races (state and fed) he won by having dirt dug up on the other guys brought out at the last minute. In '08 he ran against a hapless bumbler who just wanted to get along with the other side and the press. This time he can't scare independents by saying, "Romney's controlled by the Tea Party" , because the Tea Party by and large are tolerating Mitt just to be rid of Hussein. On top of that, Romney is so squeaky clean even trolls like Axelgrease can't dig up dirt on him. Obama's only play is the race card or some kind of wag the dog type October surprise.
The effect of the T.E.A. party is far more pervasive than has generally been recognized. The mid-term elections of 2010 were not a fluke, it was the beginning of the return swing of the pendulum, and the momentum has not been slowed.
There was a sea change, and it was recognized too late, if at all, by the partisans of the Current Regime, who seem to have no idea that they may have overreached in their zeal to bring centralized health care delivery systems under largely government control. And this vast wealth transfer scheme was instituted at the expense of any other single governmental initiative. There was no reform of any kind, to taxation, or immigration, or judicial review, or general transparency of government operations. Foreign involvements were allowed to fall into disrepair, as if nobody had any clear idea how to conduct international leadership, deferring and bowing to representatives of despotic regimes everywhere, with no vision of the ideal that is America, nor to its destiny as the beacon for all mankind.
We had an experiment, it is over, and the laboratory report indicates that its outcome was unsuccessful. Conclusion: don’t pursue that line of inquiry further, as no useful purpose has been found for the theories tested.