You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Some are calling Obama's historic and important victory a landslide (also here, here, and here). 

Certainly 52% to 46% is significant, and it gives Democrats their first majority (i.e., non-plurality) win since 1976. But a landslide? I'm not so sure, especially when polls promised a double-digit margin of victory. 

The electoral college math points to a landslide where it really counts—349 to 162 in the electoral count without knowing how Missouri, North Carolina, and Nebraska District 2 will turn out—but that lopsided outcome is a function of the dysfunctional winner-take-all format that most states use to divvy out their electoral votes.

 

Source: Wikipedia, the encyclopedia created by Wiccans

For the popular vote, it's not all that overwhelming a result. Using simple math, for every 100 McCain voters there were 113 Obama voters.

In 2004, for every 100 Kerry voters there were 105 Bush voters. We on the Democratic side certainly didn't call that halfway to a landslide. We were claiming that Republican operatives stole Ohio (Diebold!) and that the popular vote was close enough to justify our party taking power if we were to win the electoral vote. 

For a true landslide in modern times we go to 1984, when for every 100 Mondale voters there were a whopping 143 Reagan voters. Or in 1980 when for every 100 Carter voters there were 124 Reagan voters. That's an ass-kicking. 

Picking a Democratic win, how about for every 100 Dole voters there were 121 Clinton voters. That's quite a bit better than in 1992 when for every 100 Bush-41 voters there were only 114 Clinton voters. (And there 228 Clinton voters for every 100 Perot voters that year, with the number jumping to 586 Clinton voters for every 100 of Perot's.)

Now that's a landslide. The five or six points Obama came out ahead is a clear win but it is not a "landslide."

Though the head of Republicans Abroad Korea saying something similar might sound like sour grapes, I am not saying this to distract from this important victory at all. Rather, I mean to point out that there is a lot of work to do in order to achieve those very things Obama has promised us. 

Reaching across the aisle will win the day, not gloating about an imaginary "landslide" or "mandate" like some Republicans did in 2000 and 2004 (believe it or not, I heard Bush's margin in the Florida recount called a landslide; Bush himself said he believed his triumph in 2000 was a mandate).

Ah, but that's another topic for another day. Right now, landslide or no, it's a happy, happy day for some people.