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Obama won by the largest non incumbent margin history and the 6th largest ever. Now thats a significant victory and all should congratulate him for running a campaign for the ages.
Here's an impressive-sounding statistic, even if it's mostly an artifact of population growth. Barack Obama's victory margin from November 4th now stands at 9,124,522 votes, and will probably grow a bit more once states like Illinois, New York and California finalize their counts.
This is the 6th largest victory margin of all time, and the largest ever by a non incumbent.
If looked at in percentage terms, however, Obama's 7.0-point margin is really fairly middle of the road, having been bettered 26 times overall and by 12 non-incumbents:
Largest Popular Vote Percentage Margin, Non-Incumbents Only
Even with it being much a result of population growth it is for now the non incumbent record.
Obama won by the largest non incumbent margin history and the 6th largest ever. Now thats a significant victory and all should congratulate him for running a campaign for the ages.
Here's an impressive-sounding statistic, even if it's mostly an artifact of population growth. Barack Obama's victory margin from November 4th now stands at 9,124,522 votes, and will probably grow a bit more once states like Illinois, New York and California finalize their counts.
This is the 6th largest victory margin of all time, and the largest ever by a non incumbent.
If looked at in percentage terms, however, Obama's 7.0-point margin is really fairly middle of the road, having been bettered 26 times overall and by 12 non-incumbents:
Largest Popular Vote Percentage Margin, Non-Incumbents Only
Even with it being much a result of population growth it is for now the non incumbent record.
Without a doubt one of the finest campaigns ever run, his victory was sweet... as was the complete and total humiliation of the Republican Party. Most importantly there is no question in that he has a mandate to deliver some real change from what we've seen the last eight years.
Fantastic. I dont know how much louder a call for change can be.
But change was already on the way. Not just about Obama (and not really represented by him) but a sense that a revolution in thought was taking place - the old guard was dying and something new was coming - was here. In December 2007 Andrew Sullivan published this about it: Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters - The Atlantic (December 2007) At about the same time IIRC Gary Hart published something similar on the same topic in the NYT.
If the Black, Hispanic and college aged voters bothered to get out in record number to vote 8 years ago.....Bush would have never been in office. Instead of feeling all victorious, they should feel a little silly.
If the Black, Hispanic and college aged voters bothered to get out in record number to vote 8 years ago.....Bush would have never been in office. Instead of feeling all victorious, they should feel a little silly.
I think the only folks feeling a "little silly" are the McCain/Palin supporters who up until the day of the election continued to rather foolishly claim that the polls were wrong.
If the Black, Hispanic and college aged voters bothered to get out in record number to vote 8 years ago.....Bush would have never been in office. Instead of feeling all victorious, they should feel a little silly.
History can be revisited but not changed. The here and now can be changed and this election was about that change at this time and this place.
Some fret about loves lost while others love their loves realized as being their current here and now.
People should factor in a couple of additional points. Obama won despite being black, which is a handicap in this country. Sure it helped him marginally with the smallish black vote - they are traditionally above 90% Dem anyway. But it hurt him greatly among the much larger non-black voting block. Had he not had that barrier to overcome, his victory would have been much larger.
Second, the GOP had the advantage of the corrupted DOJ. The Rove-led attempt to politicize the FEC and the DOJ to ensure a "permanent GOP majority," while not successful, must have had some impact on the vote. We may never know how many voters were removed from the rolls on questionable grounds, but it certainly hurt Obama's total.
Given the horrible GOP record over the last 8 years, the occupations, the economic conditions, the poorly run McCain campaign, the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the GOP base towards McCain, it's actually really amazing that Obama wasn't further ahead. The reasons that he wasn't further ahead are more interesting to me than his vote total.
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