Obama's campaign was a triumph of micro-targetted negative advertising. Blue-collar white males in Ohio were told that Romney was a greedy outsourcer out to destroy American manufacturing. Suburban women were told Romney was going to bring back back-alley abortions. I'm sure he had some Spanish-language ads against Romney that were real humdingers.
What's the way to deal with this kind of stuff? More negative campaigning from our side? Defensive ads against it? I don't know. But Romney didn't seem to offer much of either when attacked. He seemed to just take the punch and try to change the subject. Turned out not to be an effective strategy.
“Obama’s campaign was a triumph of micro-targetted negative advertising.”
A negative campaign trumped a positive one. It energized their base with fear.