What have we learned this election?

1. Barack Obama is the first northern Democrat to win since JFK.
2. When liberal democrats have run, they all have been beaten. When centrists have run, they have run. Obama seemed to have broken this rule.
3. Senators have viable again. For the past forty years, Americans have expected their presidental candidate to have some sort of executive experience. Ronald Reagan (California), Jimmy Carter (Georgia) and Bill Clinton (Arkansas) were governors. JFK was the last sitting senator to become president. But this year, the three strongest candidates - Mr Obama, Mr McCain and Hillary Clinton - were all senators.
4. Web-based social promiscuity is definitely the way forward. Facebook and MySpace were used with devastating effect by the Obama campaign. So, too, his own beautifully-designed website. Its organisational and money-making power were extraordinary and election-changing.
5. The veteran problem. Nobody doubts John McCain's remarkable story of wartime bravery. But does it help to be a hero?
   For the fifth election running, the candidate with the more heroic or convincing war record has lost. McCain against Obama.
   Kerry and Gore against Bush. Bob Dole against Bill Clinton and Bush Sr against Clinton.
6. Like John McCain, Barry Goldwater, the GOP presidential candidate in 1964, was an Arizonan senator, a former pilot, a maverick and a straight-talker. He commandeered a plane during the 1964 convention in San Francisco to buzz the convention below.
   Arizonan senators with a love of dare devil aeronautics and devil-may-care linguistics? Don't call us, we'll call you.

I like the connection between Obama-JFK and McCain-Goldwater. The more I read about it, the more it seem that everything is predestined.