Where did Obama lose (some) people from 2008?

[Proud Public Servant]

1. Non-ideological voting

I don't think Fox, etc, really has anything to do with it; those listening to the right wing hate-o-sphere were never voting our way anyway. I think there's a certain strain of voter who votes for "competence, not ideology" (to use Dukakis' old slogan). That voter voted for Obama in '08 because the GOP had proven itself to be so thoroughly incompetent on all fronts. That same voter today, though, looks at Obama and sees him as incompetent, in no small part because he and his people seriously overpromised. Unemployment is not down to where people want it, nor to where Team Obama said it would be. Washington is more dysfunctional than ever, and while that's not Obama's fault he did foolishly run on fixing it. Afghanistan, the "good war" he chose to double down on, looks like a $2 billion-a-week debacle. Voters who perceive these things, and don't care about underlying causes, will peel off and vote Romney -- and then if, God forbid, Romney wins, and GOP policies make everything worse, they'll vote against him in 2016.