it's over, apologise Islandman

[Yuttie]

, hehehe

[Islandman]

Yep, its over!

The national vote is about in line with what I expected, 3-5points, but he won more states than I thought he would.

It was a comfortable victory, but I wouldn't call it a landslide since McCain still won about 20 states. You were defintately closer to the final result than me though, I will concede that.

Its a big day for all of us. I am still celebrating so we can analyze it more tomorrow.

[Hortical]

No, by all objective measures it WAS a landslide. The latest numbers in electoral votes gives Obama 349 to 147 for McCain.

[Gamma]

it was a landslide...yuttie and willi mi comrades in arms...big up unnuhself...i-man you can hop on now that yuh exhale and not nerminous...karl ..... well what can we say.

i am proud of the american youth movement!!!

[Islandman]

Well, open to ones own interpretation I guess. The losing candidate won 47% of the popular vote.

Few pundits I hear are calling it a landslide, more like an easy win. In modern US history landslides are generally more like 1964, 1972 and 1984 where the losing candidates win less than 10 states.

Like I say though, semantics not worth arguing. He won easily.

[Gamma]

i have heard them callling it a landslide...2-1 electoral votes......turning red states blue?

remember it is possible to win the popular vote and lose the election.....

[Willi]

The usual metric of Landslide is 350 Electoral college votes.

Obama got 364.

[Islandman]

The metrics differ between analysts, but on second thoughts when you consider how close the last few US elections have been, (incluuding the non-presidential ones) I think this one passes enough tests to merit being called a landslide.

Here is an interesting article on this.
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First, the easy ones: The 1936 election, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt beat Alf Landon 523 to 8 in the electoral vote and 61 percent to 37 percent in the popular vote, was definitely a landslide.

Ronald Reagan's 1984 win over Walter Mondale, 525 to 13 in the electoral vote and 59 percent to 41 percent in popular votes, that, too, was unquestionably a landslide.

With Barack Obama out front of John McCain in national polls and leading in many battleground states, various computer analyses hold out the possibility that Obama could claim 300 or more electoral votes. (It takes 270 electoral votes to win.) But there's no clear definition of what it takes to lay claim to the distinction of a landslide.

Ed Rollins, who helped engineer Reagan's 1984 runaway, defines a landslide as "any time you get over 300 or 320 electoral votes." He thinks Obama is on track for more than 300.

Kathleen Thompson Hill and Gerald N. Hill, in their book, "The Facts on File Dictionary of American Politics," say that while interpretations differ, a landslide might be 60 percent of the popular vote. That's a fairly steep hurdle these days, when the two parties have bases of around 40 percent of the electorate, leaving the other 20 percent to be fought over.

But the Hills, both professors at Sonoma State University, also say there are more nuanced ways to define a landslide.

"It usually means exceeding expectations and being somewhat overwhelming," Gerald Hill said. There's a sense of momentum, "like rocks coming down a mountain, and that seems to be what is happening" with the Obama campaign, he said.

Political columnist William Safire writes in his "Safire's Political Dictionary," that the word landslide made its appearance in the natural-disaster sense in 1838, and that headline writers began applying it in the political context a few years later. He defines it as "a resounding victory; one in which the opposition is buried."

Resounding victories in the Electoral College are not always reflected in the popular vote.

In 1988, the first President Bush drubbed Michael Dukakis 426-111 in the electoral vote, but the popular vote was closer, 53 percent to 46 percent. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in the first of two lopsided victories over Adlai Stevenson, in 1952 came out ahead 442-89 in electoral votes while the margin was 55 percent to 44 percent in popular votes.

"Given the razor-thin margins of 2000 and 2004, a landslide is more difficult to define this cycle," said Robert Schmul, professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. He concludes that "if a candidate doesn't receive over 100 electoral votes, that candidate is clearly a victim of a landslide." He said that in all such cases over the past half-century, the winning popular-vote margin approached or exceeded 10 percentage points.

Among other elections that might qualify as landslides:

_Theodore Roosevelt over Alton Parker in 1904, 336-140.

_Woodrow Wilson over Roosevelt and William Taft in 1912, 435-96.

_Warren Harding over James Cox in 1920, 404-127.

_Herbert Hoover over Alfred Smith in 1928, 444-87.

_Franklin Roosevelt in all four of his elections, with electoral votes of 472, 523, 449 and 432.

_Lyndon Johnson, who carried the tongue-in-cheek nickname "Landslide Lyndon" for his razor-thin 87-vote victory in a Texas Senate race, over Barry Goldwater in 1964, 486-52.

_Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972, 520-17.

Safire recounts that Thomas Eagleton, who was forced to drop out as George McGovern's running mate after it was revealed he had been treated for mental illness, dismissed that campaign setback as "one rock in a landslide." McGovern, writing five years later, wrote: "Perhaps that is true. But landslides begin with a single rock."

[Mosiah]

Again, this should never have been so close. McCain and Palin, followers of a Bush Doctrine (even while not knowing what it is), were a pathetic bunch.

The fact it was this close tells me something. Keep your guard up!

[Islandman]

Again, this should never have been so close. McCain and Palin, followers of a Bush Doctrine (even while not knowing what it is), were a pathetic bunch.

The fact it was this close tells me something. Keep your guard up!

I agree totally. That was my main point during the last few weeks which Gamma interpreted differently. If a Dem president had the performance of Bush/Cheney , any Republican candidate would win 45+ states in the next election.

[Exile]

Doesn't it feel good to be on a winning side of an election Mosiah?
What is glaring in this election though is the chasm that exists between Obama and his vision for the US and the World and our own pathetic politicians in the wider Caribbean who only seek for themselves. If only some of his visions could transcend borders and get our collective countries to wake and get going despite hardships. Who says charisma deosn't help?

[Mosiah]

I don't even want to go there right now.

[OJ]

you cant get a bigger landslide that that.. Island man you and Karl need to wipe away unno sorrow..

[Karl]

you cant get a bigger landslide that that.. Island man you and Karl need to wipe away unno sorrow..

Karl & sorrow?
I am a democrat through and throgh...a Hilary Clinton democrat...but DEMOCRAT! ...and a black DEMOCRAT at that!

McCain's policies to me were more moderate and thus better than Obama's. Perhaps if the democrat was white I may have cross over. ...but McCain and Palin much as I perfered their policies...not now, not this time! Little does McCain know...we do not run from history! We make history! Just had to be in it!

[OJ]

what policy was better.. what policy was McCain had? Karl where is bob jhonson..