By Ivo Ivanov, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices panelist

If there was an open-ended book that told the journey of this nation, I wonder how big, important and historic the chapter on this 2008 election would be.

There were so many “first-time-ever” moments, so many groundbreaking choices and so many unexpected developments that I believe we’ve just experienced a major plotline twist in the turbulent narrative of our history.

Now that the longest and most expensive election season is mercifully over, it is time to make a step back and take a more relaxed, unbiased, and analytical look at all the factors that shaped and ultimately predetermined the final outcome.

Most historians will probably agree that it wasn’t just one or two things that decided the election, but rather a complex amalgamation of events, decisions, strategies and characters. Just revisiting the whirlwind of madness and campaign surprises in the last two months is a daunting task. We won’t have to wait long before dissertations, books, and personal accounts are written, taking us to the kitchen and giving us a better glimpse at every choice and every error that propelled one campaign and damaged the other.

Counting down from least to most important, here are just ten of the factors I believe were largely responsible for what happened today at the voting booth:

Reason # 10: OUR TIMES

YouTube didn’t even exist in 2004 and podcasting was yet to become a word. Video compression was still struggling to make files smaller and easily available.

Internet was a player in the Kerry-Bush election but not on the monumental scale that it is today. Social networks became a massive vehicle for political message delivery and consumer generated content, often outperformed traditional media.

The younger, savvier, and more webgenic (I should trademark that one) Obama acclimated faster and more intuitively to the new digital environment. He quickly gathered nearly 1million “friends” on MySpace and went viral on Internet video with his message and persona. He had an immediate presence on YouTube with his own channel not to mention the young fanatics generating their own content.

It’s not that McCain’s people didn’t try – they did but his political avatar seemed artificial and forced. Obama was so far ahead of the curve that he came up with another first and programmed his advertisements inside video games, reaching simultaneously young voters and my good 44 year old buddy and game addict Mark from Lenexa.

Reason # 9: MONEY

Barack Obama’s charisma combined with a competent team proved to be a fundraising machine, breaking every imaginable record and unwillingly raising the question whether the whole mechanism shouldn’t be overhauled and regulated with spending caps. His campaign had accumulated the kind of funds that should make all of us uncomfortable.

Barack’s integrity as a president will, no doubt, come under fire every time his executive decisions coincide with special interest donations. As voters, we should hope and insist that the system is changed before the next election.

At the end, Obama had so much money that he came up with another cutting edge maneuver: flooding primetime blocks of airtime with hyper-effective, superbly produced infomercials. These were so good, that one day I expect to see them in political science textbooks.

Reason # 8: JOE THE PLUMBER

Demographic segmentation was a successful device in the last few elections. “The Angry White Male” went republican in 1994, Dole tried to romance “The Soccer Mom” in 1996, and Bush Jr. captured the perpetual left turn imagination of “The Nascar Dad” in 2004.

So naturally, McCain tried rather desperately to carve a voting bloc borrowing the same divisive strategy for his campaign. I firmly believe this backfired. The general public simply got tired and felt patronized by this ridiculous social segmentation. Who in the world is “Joe six pack” and why should he be different from “Steve gin and tonic” and “Sally mocaccino”?

And before designating someone “Joe the Plumber”, mentioning his imaginary demographic 20 times in your debate, and using him as a campaign capital, please make sure that he actually is a plumber or that at least his name is Joe.

Now, that Sam (his real name) has hired an agent to get him a country music contract, the entire Joe the Plumber debacle is a complete joke the plumber.

At the end none of that silliness mattered as it became obvious that all the hockey moms, Joe six packs, and even Hanging Chads in the world can’t compensate for lack of substance and compelling agenda.