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You're right, you wouldn't expect any different from the campaign and the partisans. The difference was the way the media treated it, the nauseating network of "fact checkers" and "journalists" who willingly, even gleefully participated in the smear job. It was no campaign worker but a "journalist" who used the debate forum to harangue and "correct" Romney's facts - erroneously! It was not just the Obama campaign and the DNC that mocked Romney for saying that Russia was the top geopolitical foe, it was also newspapers, magazines, late-night shows, and even straight news programs. What the Romney stomping clarified is not that Republicans would be subject to completely unfair smears from their opponents. It clarified that the media was also an opponent, and one so powerful that it could not possibly be defeated without attacking it directly. That is what Trump was not afraid to do, and that is why he won.
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