NYT takes on Obama's popular vote totals

From Peter Baker's news analysis in Thursday's NYT: (emphasis mine)

For his part, Mr. Obama won a clear victory but less decisively than other presidents who were re-elected. He garnered just 50 percent of the popular vote, three percentage points lower than in 2008, in a sign of just how divided the country remains over his leadership.

That's quite a trick. We don't have an exact number yet, but Obama looks to be getting about 50.4% of the popular vote here. How about Bush in 2004? Way more -- 50.73%. And Clinton in 1996? 49.23%.

If you go back before that, presidents winning reelection did indeed get more than that range. But looking at the last two, Obama's reelection is right in the same range. Rather different from what Baker is telling us.