Or lack thereof. Throughout the primaries, voter interest in the election was at record highs. More than 230,000 people turned out for Iowa's Democratic caucuses, far higher than even the 170,000 the most optimistic internal projections -- those of Barack Obama's campaign -- had called for. Election officials warned of massive lines, especially given the early and absentee turnout, and respondents told pollsters they were hugely excited to turn out.

In the end, about 127 million votes were cast. That's a lot of ballots - the most number of raw votes ever cast in a presidential contest. But it was just about five million votes more than were cast during the 2004 election, and below even John McCain's internal projections of 130 million voters. Black voters and younger voters, two groups Obama was supposed to inspire to record levels of turnout, performed largely the same as they did in previous elections; 13% of the electorate was African American (up from 11% in 2004) and 18% were between the ages of 18-29 (up from 17% in 2004).

James Carville once declared that the name for candidates who rely on the youth vote is "loser." Obama's team won by expanding their margins among other groups and by adding blacks and younger voters as, in their words, the icing on the cake rather than the foundation upon which their victory would rise or fall. Still, the notion that older voters turn out in disproportionately higher numbers than younger voters remains accurate.