2008, the year of the economic collapse in America, unrivaled since the Great Depression of the 1930s, was a very unusual election year.
This was the first time we had an African American Presidential nominee, and he won the election, despite a majority of white men voting against him.
The country had both candidates for President born off the mainland of America–John McCain in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, and Barack Obama born in Hawaii in 1961.
The country had the greatest gap in age between the two Presidential candidates in American history–a difference of 25 years between McCain and Obama.
The country had the first college professor (although part time) winning office since Woodrow Wilson 96 years earlier, in 1912.
Barack Obama was the first President from Illinois since Abraham Lincoln 148 years earlier, in 1860.
Barack Obama was the first Northern President elected since John F. Kennedy in 1960, and is the only Democrat to have at least 51 percent of the total vote since World War II, with the exception of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
The year 2008 saw the first Republican woman nominee for Vice President, Sarah Palin.
John McCain became the second Arizona Senator to lose the Presidency, after Barry Goldwater 44 years earlier, in 1964.
So the 2008 election was a path breaking election in more ways than one!