Examining the Obama Coalition

There has been significant insinuation from the right, most clearly on display in Governor Romney's post-election "gifts to minorities" explanation for his loss, that Obama was able to eke out a victory due to his reliance on the old Democratic stratagem of identity politics. Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard has a more (read: slightly more) academic take on this theory available here. The idea is that Obama, taking advantage of demographic shifts in the landscape of America, made enough micro-targeted promises to minority groups  to earn him their lopsided support, barely besting Romney's broad-based coalition of real Americans.