There is no doubt this was an election about the economy, and that it was deeply personal. About 40% of the voters, according to the exit polls, felt they were in a worse position financially than they were four years ago, and nearly three-quarters of them voted for Obama.
Very few of the voters (about one tenth) said the election was about race, yet if whites alone had gone to the polls, McCain would have won. Two-thirds of the white vote in the South backed McCain.
On the other side of the coin, almost every black voter backed Obama. Bush got about one tenth of the black vote last time, but even that small Republican foothold in the black vote crumbled this year. Talk about racial barriers falling should be treated with caution.
If there was one decisive ethnic factor, it was the Hispanic vote. Obama won two-thirds, compared to John Kerry, who scraped just over half. The speculation that Hispanics would be scared off by a black candidate simply dissolved.
Obama even won the Hispanic vote in Florida, home to the Cuban population - a clear sign of a generational shift in that community. As Hispanics are the fastest growing sector in the population, this has to be good news for the Democrats.
