Quote from peilthetraveler:
The fact that Obama had 4 times as much money as mccain but only beat him 53% to 46% says something. If both parties had equal money, mccain would've won by a landslide. In fact, if Bush was able to run for a 3rd term and he had that much money to spend..he would've got re-elected!
He won three states south of the Mason-Dixon, despite being the first black candidate to run for the Dems. That was amazing.
He won Indiana, which is nuts.
He even copped an electoral vote out of Nebraska, and I don't think any Dem has managed that since the Goldwater fiasco of 1964.
His coattails were healthy: the Dems picked up 7 seats in the Senate, and 20 in the House.
He did all this despite running against probably the only Republican with even a distant chance of winning in this terrible economic environment, because he was the only one they could have run who could truthfully claim to be independent of Bush.
That's more than enough success.