President Barack Obama, whose hope-and-change campaign promises yielded to grim economic realities in the White House, defied history to win re-election last night, as wary Americans seeing glimmers of a recovery handed him a second chance.
Obama was re-elected with the highest unemployment rate of any president returned to office since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 and became only the second Democrat since Roosevelt to win another term. Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996.
