Well,
meep, meep! 
Exactly!
WTF? Black voters are not “disproportionate” in the Democratic Party, it’s always been a major constituency, and, not surprisingly, Obama has brought out more voters with this election. I see what you’re trying to say, in the scope of the country at large, but, guess what; more people regardless of party are feeling that their votes might just count because of Obama’s run, as opposed to even 30 years ago.
Times change faster than I gave credit for. When I heard Obama’s Convention speech in 2004, I said, “That’s our first Black President!” But, I thought it would be 2012 before that was possible. Glad to be proven wrong here. I do suppose that it’s the fact that people are really sick of the way the political pendulum has swung the past few years, in comparison with the way the cultural paradigms have shifted to more inclusion. At the heart of it is that the greater mass of people have shifted their views on how to live with a diverse population in their day to day lives. The old guard controlling factor just can’t keep up with human beings being basically decent, and finally calling bullshit with bad government.
And Oy, If he doesn’t win this go around, I see no reason why he can’t run again in 2012.
I knew Obama was going to run for President in 2004.
Ok, then, here’s your Smiley sticker 
Luv Ya!
The moment I heard his convention speech in 2004 I knew* he was going to run and I actually thought he had a good chance of going all the way. He was tall and handsome (in his way) and he gave a good speech that, IIRC, actually said something.
*That is to say I had a gut instinct felt like a certainty; objectively I knew that it was just an instinct.
You can’t put together an organization like the one Obama has if you don’t expect to win. Everything had to go right for him to succeed, but he did plan for it. He wasn’t setting himself up for a future run, he pretty clearly realized at some point that if he was ever going to have his moment, this was going to be it and he tried to make the most of it.
Hmm. I remember thinking “This guy should run for president some time” but I’ve felt that way about most key note speakers since Barbara Jordan made hers in 1976 (the first presidential election I was eligible to vote in).
When I heard his 2004 speech, I thought, “This guy is going to be the next president.” I bought the C-Span dvd of the speech. When I saw the way he campaigned against Jack Ryan and Alan Keyes, I thought, “I am so proud my senator is going to be president.” When he got the police video interrogation legislation passed as law, I thought, “HOT DAMN! My senator is going to be president and he is going to do something with it. He is not going to try, he is going to do!”
I don’t think Michelle Obama would allow him to run a second time if he failed to win it all the first time. Obama won, not because he was lucky, which in many ways he was, but because he put together the best organization. He learned from the past, taking a page from Dean’s book and using the web to drum up money and interest. He also had many real people out there doing old fashioned door to door canvassing. He also won because he was not afraid to lead and knew when to put his hand in and his foot down and when to take advice. I don’ t think he assumed he would win. I do think He assumed he could win, and took every step he could to make it happen.
Hillary assumed she would win. She did not lead her team, and she did not learn from history or pay attention to the rules of the game. She had at least one advisor planning on the primaries being winner take all, which would have let her win early. She failed to lead her team and she let them squabble and pull in different directions. She did not make key decisions when they needed to be made. She did not pay attention to the rules, acted like caucuses did not matter, and relied on big donors.
Obama was damn lucky he had her as an opponent. One of the key things he has now over McCain is the number of donors who are not tapped out. I think donating to a candidate, especially repeatedly donating, helps galvanize voters for a candidate and will help get them to the polls. There is a sense that, “well, I paid for this guy to win, am I going to risk throwing my investment away by not backing it up with my vote? If my guy loses, it won’t be my fault.”
Perhaps even more the fact that Obama has so many small donators, every one of whom has a vested interest in seeing that he gets elected. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of them will see that not only they get to the polls, but that someone else in their family or their neighborhood gets to the polls as well. That’s what you do when you have an investment, no matter how small, to protect.
I found the following bit rather interesting. I’m not really going one way or another with it, just offered as an indication of how meteoric (as measured to become a candidate for president) his rise in politics is.
Yep it’s going to make a great segment in a biography some day, and when my grand kids are asking me about the first black president, and talking about him like we talk about Martin Luther King, I can say…I was there.