Some solace hope, even, I suppose, can be taken from the fact that Bush appears to have won simply by turning out his base (Rove's strategy once it became clear he wasn't expanding the GOP share of the swing electorate).
Andrew Sullivan has the scoop from TNR (it's on Sully's main page, sorry, I am so numb, dazed and exhausted I am just not gonna bother making the tasty URL link:
"Kerry won the center and the left. Over to Noam <http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml>:
'Not only did Kerry win by an 86-13 margin among self-described liberals, he also won by a 55-45 margin among self-described moderates. So how'd Bush pull it off? He won 84-15 among self-described conservatives, and, more importantly, he made sure conservatives comprised a much bigger chunk of the electorate than they did in 2000. (Conservatives comprised about 34 percent of the electorate yesterday, versus 29 percent in 2000 -- a huge shift, raw numbers-wise.) Anyone anticipating a conciliatory second Bush term should stop and consider how much Bush owes his base.'
There you have the Rove strategy in a nutshell. If the ideological demographics had stayed the same as they had been in 2000, Kerry might have won.
Two other small points: all those predictions of gay marriage moving African-Americans toward the Republicans didn't pan out. All those predictions of the youth vote going for Kerry did pan out - but they were trounced by seniors shifting to Bush (I think the gay issue mattered there as well).
The GOP's weak spot is that they aren't winning over the young; and that they won't have gays to kick around for ever. I notice that in California and Massachusetts, marriage equality candidates all won big. The polarization continues. Let federalism work."