one of the big jokes about the 2004 election was that kerry already had an automatic 49% of the country, and a $300 million dollar grossing film to start his campaign. but kerry was such a bland, templated political robot, he couldn't garner an additional few percentage points on his own to beat the hyped up visage of dr. evil.
i think "he's not bush/bush jr" was a decent chunk of the vote going for obama. in the structured defense, that is how many votes are cast, all the time, for anyone. but i do think "bush" is probably one of the bigger factors in the election; both for why mccain lost and why obama won.
there are certainly those who voted for obama because he's black. but there's likely just as many (or at least a rivaling faction) of those who voted against because he's not white. perspective tells the story of one as racist and the other as noble, but there's certainly a level of ignorance to them both. it just isn't cool to say so. except to balloon knot, you can tell him.
i am hopeful to believe those types of votes are the minority, for either side, but i'm not naive enough to stand by that.
