People forget, the polls showed a toss-up or razor thin Obama lead until the financial meltdown. After the meltdown, Obama got a very comfortable lead in the polls which basically mirrored the election day results.
I still believe that if not for the financial meltdown, Obama would have narrowly lost to McCain. We live in a fukked up, racist country.
Obama was leading most of the election, it only became a toss-up after Republicans got their post-convention bounce and Palin momentarily generated enthusiasm before it backfired on her.
Even without the economic meltdown, you have to remember that McCain and Palin were making massive gaffes down the stretch and Obama really had very deep enthusiasm and turnout behind him from the get-go.
To lose the election, Obama would have had to lose all of:
North Carolina (+0.4)
Indiana (+1.0)
Florida (+2.8)
Ohio (+4.6)
Virginia (+6.3)
Colorado (+9.0)
Iowa (+9.5)
I'm sorry, but that's way too big a swing in too many states in too many different regions. He had that shyt in the bag.