Even though the electors were not tossed out by the vote in the joint session, Bush's election will forever be stained by the record as one of three occasions an objection was raised in our history -- 1877, 1968 (objection to a single "faithless" elector) and 2004 Ohio.
A formal objection that mandates an immediate stop to the count for a joint session to debate and vote on whether or not to toss out the tainted electors needs both a Senator and a member of the House.
In 2000, there was a big push to recruit a Senator to join members of the House in an objection -- without success. There was a far bigger, more coordinated effort in 2004. Although a central figure in the effort, John Conyers and his staffers, told us repeatedly that we would "never get a Senator" -- essentially declaring defeat even as we were fighting for victory. When we did "win" and get Boxer to sign on, it challenged the general, pervasive defeatist "conventional wisdom" that has long infected the democratic leadership -- always a good thing. It also challenged their central meme for doing nothing on just about anything -- "there will be a backlash" (or some terrible political price) if we do the right thing, so principles be damned. (The feared "political price" for standing up did not materialize. The opposite. Those who stood up gained stature for drawing a line in the sand.)
Another thing unique about the effort is that an enormous number of "regular people" were knocking on Senator's doors, having meetings with staffers, bringing petitions from constituents. We just had a couple days from the arrival of the new congress and the count. In the compressed timeframe, offices were overwhelmed with calls and visitors in a way they had never seen before. The effort itself engaged people who stayed politically engaged on other issues; people who learned a lot about how to lobby members of congress.
Compared to the heartbreaking scenes in 2000 (video below), listening to some of the more powerful statements condemning Ohio's election that are on the record as a result of the objection was pretty gratifying.
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