Obama didn't have enough history to be elected on his positions or accomplishments. He was only halfway through his freshman term as senator. The only explanation for Obama winning the primary was that he was a black person selling expiation for imagined racial guilt....Huh?
That the white guilt and black racist constituencies were big enough to push him from what should have been no delegates at all based on his lack of experience to victory in the primary suggests it was also large enough to swing the general election when added to the "would vote for a glass of water if it had a 'D' next to it" constituency. The issues didn't matter and thus Iraq and the recession didn't matter. Anyone who was going to vote based on issues was already looking at Obama's record and figuring he needed a lot of seasoning.
Obama's position was hollow because he did not have slave ancestors. He was lily white on his mother's side and present day west African (and not Liberian) on his father's: the people who won their tribal wars and sold the losers to white slave traders, ie. fellow exploiters not victims. But because the racial guilt idea is deeply racist only an American black with roots going back to before the Civil War could have said that and had the people who bought into racial guilt listen.