I think that the social issue votes this year have been very interesting, and it makes me wonder how much to the left the country really did shift. In California who would have thought that they would ban gay marriage, in Arkansas the proposition to prohibit anyone who's not married from adopting or being foster parents passed (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143901) and in Florida Amendment 2 also looks like it will pass. This means that a lot of conservatives came out, crossed the party line and voted for Obama. In that regard I think this election was in many ways a total rejection of George Bush and the current crew running the republican party, and less so a major shift to the left by the American people. I'm not sure how the Obama camp will see it, but that's my thinking right now.
In case it's not blatantly obvious. It's a one party system. McCain, Bush & Obama are all from the same camp.