But his presidency still remains a high-risk work in progress. He is one of the most inexperienced presidents in U.S. history. Economists say his Old Deal, pump-priming, big-spending prescriptions for economic recovery haven't worked anywhere. He is about to enter the White House at a time when global terrorism is flexing its muscles and plotting to strike again.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are going back to square one, focusing on controlling spending, reducing the size of government, and cutting tax rates to get the engine of the economy running again.

The 2008 election resulted in a change in administrations, but recent polls show it didn't change the nation's ideological balance, which is still very much right of center.

A post-election Pew poll finds that while the Democrats' advantage in party identification has risen, "the share of Americans who describe their political views as liberal, conservative or moderate has remained stable."

Pew says that just one of five Americans say they are liberal (21 percent), while 38 percent call themselves conservative, and 36 percent say they are moderates -- a ratio that has remained unchanged over the past eight years. "For the GOP, it sure looks like a long road back," Rosenberg said in his celebratory analysis.

But it may not be as long as he thinks. About a year from now, we will be in the beginning stages of the midterm-election cycle when the political history books tell us that the party in power almost always loses seats in Congress. That record has been broken only twice in our history. The last time was in 2002 when President Bush was riding high, the Republicans had cut tax rates across the board, and the GOP made substantial gains in Congress.

The chances are extremely high that the GOP will gain congressional seats in November 2010, dealing Barack Obama the first political defeat of his presidency.