Obama racks up $25 million in fundraising...

That depends. Which substance are you talking about?

Seriously, there were a few factors that played into W's/Shrub's/Fredo's election. First, was the re-emergence of the Christian Right that wanted a more "moral" president than Bill Clinton. Second, Gore's arrogance and abandonment of his home state cost him the votes he really needed. Third, the Democrats botched the Florida recount court case.

Two years ago, the GOP used the gains it had made for the past decade to pepper enough "moral" referendums in key states to help push Bush over the top.

And, to Bush's credit, he was governor of the third largest state for six years. No one -- not even the staunchest liberal -- could have predicted how horribly this administration would act.

 

Whatever size state he was governor of, his only political experience was in a weak governor system.

Obama's time in the Illinois legislature trumps that.

 

Fenian's right. It's not the amount of money that's impressive, it's the way he got it.

100,000 donors and 90% of those who gave sent $100 or less. Very surprising.


Freelance, I'm not buying the last sentence of your last post. People could claim that they just didn't know back 2000. But in 04, after this guy had done absolutely nothing but screw up for four years, if you didn't know he was terrible, it was because you didn't want to know.

 

The Bush camp did a good job of smearing John Kerry and placing enough doubt in swing voters. But they were also buoyed by the amount of same sex marriage ban amendment/referendums placed on the ballots that helped bring the Christian right out in droves. Those latter voters were voters who would never have voted for Kerry -- they just wouldn't have shown up.

Bush won the popular vote in '04 because the Christian Right showed up en masse, moreso than they did in 2000.

 

Hilary's got the harder road to hoe, Obama's only half black, which means he's got more in common with all the prior presidents than Hillary, who is all woman.

If Hillary gets the same proportion of the female vote that Obama gets of the black vote, she'll win in a landslide.