Did Obama win, or did Romney lose?

[Mechaman]

While I found his defense of Romney absurd (Romney was one of the worst candidates in history, full stop), I must say I have to agree with RedBan that it was more of a case of the Democrats winning and the Republicans losing.  The series of unfortunate gaffes, along with the Democrats having an effective election year strategy (appeal to the "others"), is what happened in 2012.

Really, Hockeydude said it best.  The Obama team were being purely strategic in their pursuit of the necessary 270 Electoral Votes to win.  332 Electoral votes while barely losing one state is still as much of a victory as 458 Electoral votes with 180 of those EVs within a five point margin (of course, this sort of victory would be impossible with today's political alignment).