Quick ?

Since the 1980 election is what Barack is comparing his 2008 election, what percentage of votes did Reagan aggregate in 1980?

Ronald Wilson Reagan Republican California 43,903,230 50.7% 489 George Herbert Walker Bush Texas 489
James Earl Carter, Jr. Democratic Georgia 35,480,115 41.0% 49 Walter Frederick Mondale Minnesota 49
John Bayard Anderson (none) Illinois 5,719,850 6.6% 0 Patrick John Lucey Wisconsin 0
Ed Clark Libertarian California 921,128 1.1%

Bet you could win a bar bet with that datum.

Might have to try that one night...

the GOP nominee, Reagan, got an 8 percent boost, and the electoral-vote win is just soul-crushing.

then the 1984 election results, as compared to the 1980 results, would probably be more informative. That would show how many people Reagan was able to convince to come over to the dark side after four years as president. And, indeed, there's an 8 percent jump for Reagan in the popular vote in 1984, which represents the largest popular vote percentage since (bleecch!) Nixon in 1972. And that Nixon vote is, I believe, the highest popular vote percentage of the 20th century, and definitely the highest of the post-war era.

Even more revealing is Reagan's crushing victory in electoral votes -- the man garnered some 95 percent in 1984.

In sum, I agree with the side that says Reagan was indeed a transformational president, in as much as he got a sizable majority of the population to buy his snake oil.