Did the Obama victory represent a revolution of ideas?

This week in my political philosophy course, we talked about the anti-democratic design of the federal government--that fact that certain institutions, such as the Senate and the Electoral College, were created to put a brake on popular movements in society.

Its also interesting how the election results in both the Electoral College and the popular count give drastically different impressions of the support behind Obama. For instance, Rep. John Lewis called the victory a "nonviolent revolution", and a revolution of ideas, that represents a culmination of the hopes of Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you look at a map of the Electoral College results, it certainly seems like a landslide in favor of change. (The graphic also gives you a chance to look at different results going back to 1996.)

But the results of the popular vote are less decisive. Obama won only with about a 5% margin, as was predicted by the polls. Not quite the landslide.

Some other interesting points: the youth vote did not particular surge this year, anymore than it did for Kerry in 2004. What Obama did do is to solidify a coaltion of people of color behind him, particularly Latinos/as (who seemed to have been the ones to win it for him in New Mexicio and Colorado). You can see some interesting analysis here.