Obama win 'resounding'
2008-11-05 10:44
Washington - Add another electoral landslide to the record books.
There's no set definition for what constitutes a landslide, but Democrat Barack Obama's resounding electoral victory Tuesday night seems to fit the bill.
Kathleen Thompson Hill and Gerald N. Hill, in their book, "The Facts on File Dictionary of American Politics," say a landslide can be defined as "exceeding expectations and being somewhat overwhelming."
With four states yet to be decided, the electoral vote count was 349 for Obama and 144 for Republican John McCain.
President George W Bush, by contrast, won with just 271 electoral votes in 2000 and 286 in 2004. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.
A look at past elections that might qualify as landslides:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt over Alf Landon in 1936, 523 to 8.
Theodore Roosevelt over Alton Parker in 1904, 336-140.
Woodrow Wilson over Roosevelt and William Taft in 1912, 435-96.
Warren Harding over James Cox in 1920, 404-127.
Herbert Hoover over Alfred Smith in 1928, 444-87.
Franklin Roosevelt in all four of his elections, with electoral votes of 472, 523, 449 and 432.
Lyndon Johnson, who carried the tongue-in-cheek nickname "Landslide Lyndon" for his razor-thin 87-vote victory in a Texas Senate race, over Barry Goldwater in 1964, 486-52.
Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972, 520-17.
Ronald Reagan over Walter Mondale in 1984, 525-13.
- AP