SoreRomnesia!

Romney had been hoping against hope for a miracle for two years. Election night was no different, except for one thing: even Fox News deserted him as the facts became too inconvenient.

What was "Romnesia"?

The word was Obama's own invention. At a rally in Fairfax, Virginia, in the final weeks of the campaign, the president diagnosed his opponent: "If you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia." The crowd roared. The line stuck because it captured the campaign's whole case: that Romney had spent the general election rewriting positions he had taken in the primaries.

The moment the night broke

The single most memorable television moment of election night 2012 came not from a campaign but from a newsroom. Fox News's decision desk called Ohio for Obama, effectively ending the race. Karl Rove, on air as an analyst, pushed back hard and refused to accept the call. Anchor Megyn Kelly did something no one expected: she got up, walked through the newsroom on live television to the decision desk in the back, and asked the analysts to defend their call. They did. The call stood.

It was the rare election-night scene where the numbers beat the narrative in real time, in front of everyone.

Why it mattered

Fox News was the network Romney's own base trusted most. When its own decision desk would not give him Ohio, the hope ran out. Rove's on-air resistance became the instant symbol of a campaign, and a movement, unable to accept what the data had been saying for weeks.

FAQ

Who won Ohio in 2012? Barack Obama, by about three points. Ohio's 18 electoral votes were decisive in the networks' projections.

Who won the election? Obama was reelected president, defeating Mitt Romney.

Was "Romnesia" an Obama campaign invention? Yes. Obama first used it in October 2012 speeches, and it became one of the campaign's signature attack lines.

The takeaway

Every election produces a word that outlives the campaign. In 2012 it was "Romnesia": a joke about flip-flopping that became, on election night, the diagnosis of a whole coalition's relationship with reality.