It wasn't even close. That's the unexpected result of the November 6 election. And President Obama and his supporters must wrap their heads around this new reality -- just as their Republican rivals are going to have to adjust to it.

After a very long, very hard campaign that began the night of the 2010 "Republican wave" election, a campaign defined by unprecedented spending and take-no-prisoners debate strategies, Barack Obama was re-elected president. And he did so with an ease that allowed him to claim what even his supporters dared not imagine until a little after 11 pm on the night of his last election: a credible, national win.

"We're not as divided as our politics suggest," Obama told the crowd at his victory party in Chicago.

And he was on to something.

Despite a brief delay by Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and the commentators on Fox News, Obama claimed his victory on election night not the next day, as Richard Nixon did in 1960, or even later, as George Bush in 2000.

And it was a real victory.

Obama did not have to deal with the challenge of an Electoral College win combined with a popular-vote loss -- as even some of his most ardent supporters feared might be the case.

By the time Romney conceded at 1 am, Obama had a 250,000 popular-vote lead, and it grew to roughly 2 million by dawn.

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