True.  Interesting fact: Almost all the big landslides are reelecting incumbent Presidents (FDR 1936, LBJ 1964, Nixon 1972, Reagan 1984).  The biggest landslides for non-incumbents (Harding 60-34, 404-127) and FDR 1932, (57-39, 472-59) are of a matter smaller.  Any thoughts as to why?

I'd say simply that you know what you're getting in the former case.

how on earth did Dukakis lose CA?

California's only been reliably blue for the last 10 years or so.  And Reagan was still fairly popular there in 1988.

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how on earth did Dukakis lose CA?

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Someone is betraying their fresh-faced youthfulness :-)

California was solidly Republican territory throughout the Nixon and Reagan eras.

Not to mention that Nixon was from California, and Reagan had also been Governor of CA.

To add to the point, CA used to have pockets of extremely deep red (although that color scheme hadn't caught on yet), with some congressmen who were practically John Birchers. As late as 1988, Orange County alone produced a 200,000-vote Republican margin. Today the OC and the state overall are younger, more diverse, and considerably more Hispanic, and the GOP governor back in the early '90s, Pete Wilson, helped destroy his party as a statewide electoral force by pushing an anti-immigrant initiative just as these demographic changes were in progress. Today Republicans can't elect a high official in CA unless he also happens to be a world-famous action-movie star.

I think the lack of recent landslides is about more than micro-targeting. Its also about being a deeply divided country. There used to be something of a national consensus, a common vision. It was relatively centrist and sometimes was best represented by Dems and sometimes by Reps. Usually, it was a rejection of something perceived as radical more than an affirmation. I think the Johnson landslide was largely a negative reaction to Goldwater's radical (at that time) conservatism. And Nixon's landslide was clearly a negative reaction to McGovern. But Reagan's in '84, you have to give the guy credit for. People didn't particularly dislike or fear Mondale - they just frickin' loved Reagan. 40% of us didn't and that's still a lot of people, but that one was an affirmation of Reagan more than a rejection of Mondale.

I should have known that for a black man, winning wouldn't be enough.

He has to win in some sort of superhero, Tiger Woods at the Masters, never-been-seen-before fashion.

To borrow the favorite opprobrium of the GOP, "illegitimate", Obama won't be legit unless he carries 45 states and sets a record for the popular vote.

And even then, he's still illegitmate...where's that birth certificate?

I can't wait to hear a little Miles Davis at the Inaugural.

What will a route of McCain, Sara Cupcake, and the entire GOP look like? Like a summer sunrise over a snowy mountain peak, like a flight of sea gulls across the Pacific Ocean, like the view of the Grand Canyon, like city lights from the roof of a sky scraper. Can anyone out there think of any others to compare with a Dem blowout victory? Please let us know.

It'll be like the view from Mulholland Drive at midnight. It'll be like that first glimpse of Julie Christie walking down the street, swinging her purse, in "Darling". It'll be like that look on the faces of Anthony Hopkins and his sons at the end of "Legends of the Fall" after they've killed the bad guys and are now reunited. It'll be like the ending of "The Siege" when Denzel Washington tells Bruce Willis it's all over, he's lost.

It's going to be like seeing your son score his first basket, like seeing your daughter run madly across the soccer field, like seeing your mother's face when you were handed your diploma.

Very good, Foug, anyone else have anything that looks great like an Obama/Congressional Dems blowout of the GOP?