![The 2008 Presidential Election in Historical Perspective](/sites/default/files/styles/detalle/public/revistas/2020-11/1_ARichards.png.webp?itok=Op4gmHVk)
Seldom in recent US political history has a presidential candidate generated more enthusiasm and excitement in the course of a typically long and arduous primary and general election campaign than Barack Obama who, upon taking office, became the 44th, and first African-American, President. Reactions to his victory, and that of his party in the Senate and House of Representatives, bordered on the euphoric. The result was variously labeled “historic”, “unprecedented” and even a “genuinely realigning election”. Time magazine likened Obama’s triumph to that of Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide victory of 1932.