A potato that reads well, is good-looking, and has the whole MSM and the entire Democrat operation and its kingmakers at his back and doing all the dirty work would probably have beat McCain, who campaigned like he was ready to either become a Democrat or was working on his concession speech for 'way too long.
I do think Obama is pretty intelligent, though not nearly as smart as the leg-tingling crowd wants to believe, but he lacks any experience whatsoever in cutting off the cogitation and getting to a conclusion, then implementing it, and the OJT at his current employer doesn't seem to be going too well.