"Bush was the reason for the high turnout."
I think this is an excellent point. I think those who, in the past, were not too excited about voting woke up and looked at the situation, looked at what was at risk... and did what needed to be done.
To be fair, a large number of the people I spoke with said that it was Kerry who pushed them to vote against him...that they would have voted for a better Dem candidate.
Regardless, there are a lot of complexities that arose during this election.