Senator Barack Obama defeated Senator John McCain in the race for US President. Though the pre-election polls showed that Obama had a slight lead, he crushed McCain by winning more than twice the latter’s number of electoral votes: 349 to 163 (as of 11/5/08). The Chicago Tribune figured that with 97% of precincts reported, Obama had received roughly 63 million votes, which represents 52% of the total popular votes; the highest percentage by a Democrat nominee in 40 years. At the same time, the Democratic Party secured control of both the Senate and House of Representatives. This insures that...