Much has been said about the myth of America's purported center-right tendencies. Think progress has an excellent write up condemning this myth, but a very elegant collection of data at the Washington Post tells the story even better. Pictures truly are worth 1000 words and there are plenty below the fold.
The map at the Washington Post shows the margins of victory by county in striking 3D. (If you want to check it out for yourself, be patient. The initial view will be a 2D map, but after the load completes, the 3D map will open.) The taller the county, the greater the margin of victory. Looking at the counties that McCain won, we can see a relatively large margin in Utah and in Maricopa (Phoenix), Tarrant, and Montgomery, but the greatest margin of victory for McCain was 113,253 votes.
On the other hand, if we look at Obama victories, we can see that there are more places with large Obama victories (not surprising for a candidate who won), but also that the margin of victory was far greater than anything seen in the McCain map. Los Angeles (Obama by 1,079,562 votes) and Cook (Obama by 1,083,653) victories are by huge margins. Obama's margin of victory in Dallas was greater than the largest margin for McCain in the entire country.
When we look at the combined map showing both Obama and McCain victories, the magnitude of the Obama landslide becomes even more clear. There is simply no victory for McCain that comes even close to the magnitude of the victories for Obama.
I'm a bit of a sucker for data and fun ways of analyzing them, but these data paint a clear picture of a nation that is tired of republican policies and ready for change. Perhaps we were a center-right nation at one point, but after trying that for 8 years and failing miserably, it seems that we have pushed those ideas behind and finally started to lean left.