Daniel Gross, of Slate, explains why it was 24 September.

One of McCain's problems was always that he had too much practice reaching across the aisle, rather than lobbing missles across it. His opponent, a rabble-rousing community organizer (polite talk for leftist revolutionary), uninterested in reaching across aisles and practiced in actually fighting to the teeth for a cause (no matter how contrived) was having none of it. McCain really struck me as never really grasping just what he was up against.

Throughout the fall, Obama had rounded up financial icons such as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett to serve as surrogates. They could reassure Wall Street and Main Street that Obama could steer the nation through treacherous financial waters. Rather than enlist a respected businessperson such as Mitt Romney or former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as his chief economic surrogate, McCain turned to an unlicensed plumber from Ohio. McCain mentioned "Joe the Plumber" seven times in the Oct. 15 debate. In the ensuing weeks, McCain routinely trotted out Samuel J. Wurzelbacher's economic folk wisdom as gospel.

Warren the Investor and Paul the Central Banker vs. Joe the Plumber was never going to be much of a fair fight. Given the macroeconomic backdrop of recent years and the microeconomic disasters of recent weeks, neither was the presidential campaign, which is why Obama has won the White House.

McCain, so accustomed to working at getting along never really could launch an argument as if there was something he actually wanted to win.

In the end, though, how much difference will it make that a Big Government liberal (with some fight in him) defeated a Big Government conservative (with no will to fight)?

I suppose there could be some difference. That Big Government conservative wasn't saying that America need to fundamentally change, and that the Warren Court should have tackled the issue of wealth re-distribution, among many, many other things.

Like Jim Carrey said in The Mask: Hold on to your lugs nuts, it's time for an overhaul.