2012 if Operation Neptune Spear ended in failure

[Sir Mohamed]

Would it make a difference or was the killing of bin Laden just too far away from the election? Do you believe there would have been an impact if Neputune Spear ended in failure? Ergo, the terrorist leader escaping and several Navy Seals returning home in body bags.

[ClassicElectionEnthusiast]

I think Barack Obama's re-election hopes would be pretty badly (if not terminally) damaged by a failed mission, as there would no doubt be comparisons made to the failure of Operation: Eagle Claw and its impact on Jimmy Carter (although in that case, Carter also had to deal with the albatrosses of the larger hostage crisis in Iran and a sputtering economy back home).

[Ameliorated-Statism]

No change, maybe Florida but I don't think so. The significance of Neptune Spear to the election is overrated because Obama and his supporters milked it after the fact, understandably. If it failed, it would have been just a blip in the already pretty irrelevant ten-year hunt for Bin Laden, nor would people have expected anything more from the president who was elected to pivot away from the War on Terror. A failure might have marginally helped make things look even worse if the economy slipped back into recession, but in that case Obama would be losing because of the recession.