United States

Election and inauguration

The crisis worked against McCain, whom many voters associated with the unpopular policies of the administration, and worked for the highly charismatic Obama, whose campaign from its outset had been based on the theme of sweeping political change. Obama defeated McCain, becoming the first African American elected to the presidency. He captured nearly 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes—defending those states that had gone Democratic in the 2004 election, taking the lion’s share of battleground states, and winning several states that had been reliably Republican in recent presidential elections.

In the interim between the election and Obama’s inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, the Bush administration’s handling of the distribution of the first half of the TARP funds came under considerable criticism. There were accusations that it had infused too much money into large banks without placing adequate conditions on them, rather than purchasing “toxic” assets as it had promised. In the lead-up to the inauguration, Obama and his transition team, working with Bush, persuaded the Senate to release the last half of the TARP funds, promising that they would be targeted at relief for home owners and at stimulating the credit markets. Because authorization to block the release of the funds required assent by both houses of Congress, a vote by the House of Representatives was unnecessary. (See Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.)