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Pop-u-lar. It’s all about pop-u-lar.
Late last night in an email to friends and in a post here, I assayed the point that given the circs, this was an underwhelming victory for Mr. Obama; and that it does not reflect any fundamental change in the disposition of the people.
A reader hooked on to my “he turned two states blue” claim and said that that undermined my point. (This because, after I wrote the piece, a few more states went blue.)
My response:
But, [dear friend], my post was about the people and what this election says about them.
Quick numbers comparison:
Obama in 2008: 62,926,158
Bush in 2004: 62,040,610McCain in 2008: 55,729,124
Kerry in 2004: 59,028,444
Which serves, I believe, my point: John McCain underwhelmed — and had a turn-out problem. Barack Obama underwhelmed, too. And we saw, thank goodness, nothing transformational in the passions of the polity.
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