> 4. I don't agree this is a repeat of 1976 or of 2004. The constituencies
> which make up the DP are the same, but the party is more deeply divided, and
> the society is more polarized.
As always, good summary of issues by Marvin. To this, I'd just add that if the Obama coalition is -- as somebody wrote recently -- the "same" as that of Kerry, in the sense that the groups that supported Kerry appear to have about the same relative weights in Obama's coalition (something I'm not so sure of, in both positive and negative ways), the fact is that the absolute numbers are staggeringly different. The degree of participation, enthusiasm, and widespread financial support by each of those groups is much higher now than in 2004. Even if only in that sense, this is a *new* coalition. After all, beyond a point, quantitative change mutates into a qualitative leap.