I mean, look at Belgium. We've been in a deadlock for, what, four years now, and have had a caretaker government for well over a year (yes, that means the elections were more than a year ago and we still haven't got a new government). It doesn't get much more dysfunctional than that, and extreme elements on both sides have said some rather ugly things about the other side. But despite all that, things seem decidedly calmer to me than in American (national) politics (needless to say the same then goes for less dysfunctional countries in Europe as well). There's less rage, less passionate feelings against the other side, and definitely less violent threats or imagery.

Of course a lot of that has to do with institutional factors that make Belgian politics automatically more boring and less spectacular than American ones - proportional representation resulting in coalition governments with many parties, no presidential elections, that sort of thing. But still.

As I argued above, they wanted a reconciliator, not a moderate in se - and somehow, in the heat of the moment, they forgot that a) Obama's not being a moderate did make it rather hard to be a reconciliator at least on the domestic scene, and b) his proven record of being a reconciliator was rather limited anyhow (as has since been illustrated by his underwhelming performance on the foreign policy scene).

I think McCain's hawkishness did scare off a lot of people. I know I for one would've had a far harder time choosing if McCain's foreign policy during the campaign had been more like, say, Lugar's. Of course I'm a foreigner and so I rank foreign policy higher in my priorities than Americans would, but still. McCain's kowtowing to the conservative party line on other issues was not that worrisome as it was safe to assume he'd be back to his old maverick tricks as president - but the hawkishness is a very dangerous thing in a president. It's the one and only reason why I still kind of doubt electing McCain would've been better.

Seconded. Though I do sympathize with Obama's goals, and since switching to a genuine public health care system just like that is obviously impossible, it kind of would have to be more gradually... but the proposal as it was just wasn't good enough.