And midlist authors are the most vulnerable, not quite successful enough to guarantee a continued relationship with their publisher, but not bombing to the point where they know they are going to get dropped regardless.

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This brings us to the third point: Why did Romney buy the election by carpet-bombing his opponents with negative ads and pretending for the first time in his political life to be "severely conservative"?

CNN: Romney bought the nomination with flood of nasty ads

British officials, however, point to Kosovo, where it took more than two months of fierce bombing to dislodge the Serbs.

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