After packing up the computer, Blackberry, notepad & other stuff, we left the party at the Grandview Cafe and headed home. We listened to McCain's concession speech on CNN on the way home. The speech was far more gracious than the crowd, and I'm feeling charitable enough not to blame McCain for that.
We watched Obama's victory speech when we got home.
What struck me most was, it was not a joyful speech. President-elect Obama didn't fist-pump, he didn't cheerlead, he didn't smile much. He looked like someone who had just taken on an awesome burden and understood, to the depth of his heart and soul, it's colossal magnitude. It was at once comforting, inspiring, and heartbreaking.
Comforting, in that we have a leader who understands the challenges we face, and doesn't try to minimize them.
Inspiring, in that we feel the need to suffer a small part of that burden, and share in the better nation, and world, which we will work together to achieve.
Heartbreaking, in that what should be the most joyous night of his life was made bittersweet by the recent loss of his beloved grandmother, and by his own full realization of the hardships to come.
Barack Obama, lead and we will follow.
OBAMA WINS
LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE ENDS
CNN just called Ohio for OBAMA! The expected vote total is back up to 352, but the minimum is now 292...there's no way, short of a prayer-warrior miracle, that McCain can win...now it's just a matter of running up the score...
We're having fun!
CNN calls alabama, Wyoming, and North Dakota for McCain, and Rhode Island, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York for Obama. The update: the expected total is still 352 - but the minimum is 276. It's looking pretty good for Barack.
The Dems have their majority in the senate, barring a defection by Liebermann.
Polls will close in 7 minutes in 15 more states.
Here are the other sites I'm monitoring:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
http://www.swingstateproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3641
Keep your eye on Andrew Sullivan's blog (the best there is) and Nate Silver's site, where you'll find ALL the numbers.
MSNBC and CBS have called Pennsylvania for Obama but CNN is holding out. AP has called the senate race in North Carolina for Hagan. We ran the simulations for president (sans PA) and the senate with no changes to the outcome - Obama with 352 electoral votes and the Dems taking an expected 58 seats in the senate.
All of New England is blue at this point, but CNN hasn't called Maine CD-2 for Obama yet. They're showing 81 votes for Obama and my total is 82.
We'll do another update when CNN calls Pennsylvania.
CNN has called Vermont for Obama and Kentucky for McCain. The polls have closed in Ohio, West Virginia, and North Carolina, and we're still watching results coming in from Indiana, Florida and Georgia. Warner wins the senate in Virginia. No surprises yet.
If you're watching CNN, I'm sure you're as fascinated, in a repulsive sort of way, with Jessica Yellen's holographic image materializing in the War Room with Wolf Blitzer.
If you missed it, John King also has a new toy - he can make a 3-D model of the capitol building materialize in front of Campbell Brown.
We're here among fellow liberals at the Grandview cafe in Columbus, Ohio, battleground central. The word on the street is that the polling places were not all that crowded today, but we don't read much into that. We still hold out high hopes that Obama will carry the Buckeye state.
At this time the polls have closed in parts of Indiana and Kentucky, and with only a percent or two of the vote in, we can't draw any conclusions.
We're monitoring CNN, NBC, and, god help us, Fox news. As the networks call the states, we'll enter them into our model and post the new projection. So we'll post at least once per half-hour, and probably more.
So log on, lean back, crack a cold one, and root for the Land of Lincolner!
Update for November 3, one day to Election Day
WE'RE GOING FOR BRAGGING RIGHTS NOW
We did one final update to our model. Obama's chances dropped below 100%, to 99.998%, with an expected vote total of 352. Our model shows the following states as swing states:
We're going out on a limb and predicting that things will break for Obama. We predict that Obama will carry Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia - for a total of 379 electoral votes.
We'll update you from the Grandview Cafe in Columbus, Ohio, from among the jolly company of Drinking Liberally, as the results come in.
My fellow sufferers, our long nightmare is almost at an end.
Until tomorrow.
There's a curious phenomenon underway. There's been a rash of prominent conservatives endorsing Barack Obama. Christopher Buckley, son of National Review founder and prominent conservative thinker William F. Buckley, announced his support for Obama. Charles Fried, Harvard law professor and McCain advisor, withdrew his support, revealing that he had already voted for Obama by absentee ballot, and asking that his name be removed from the rolls of McCain's advisory committees. Colin Powell announced his endorsement two weeks ago (A day later, Rush Limbaugh declared, cupping his hands around his mouth and screaming into the microphone, "it was all about race!"). Powell, Buckley, and Fried all cited McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a key consideration in their decision to endorse Senator Obama. They're not alone. And it clearly is not about race.
Now the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world are declaring that a new conservative movement will rise out of the ashes of a McCain defeat, with Sarah Palin at its head. To most of us that sounds absurd. But the Cult of Palin, and its excommunication of thinking conservatives, is perfectly emblematic of a mode of thought that represents itself as principled, but in fact is corrupt and dangerous.
Update for October 31, 4 days to Election Day.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
This was Obama's best week yet in the Chance for Change model, with Barack winning all 10,000 simulated elections with an expected vote total of 366, the highest ever. The fewest votes Barack received in any election was 294, 24 more than the 270 needed to win. The most was 431. But we're not ready to relax yet.
We entered poll results from 45 states this week, of which ten materially affected the outcome. Of these, six were favorable to Obama.
In one of the biggest surprises this week, polls show the race becoming competitive in McCain's home state of Arizona. McCain had a 21 point lead last week, but only a single point lead this week. It does not look like an outlier. This red, red state is now a battleground. Obama is campaigning there, and the Republicans are running robocalls. Imagine that. We think Arizona will likely go for its favorite son, but wouldn't it be delicious?
Obama's one-point lead in Florida last week has grown to four points this week. This crucial state has volleyed back and forth all season but Obama seems to have built a durable lead, either tied or ahead in all of the last twelve polls, leading by as much as seven. Remember, if McCain loses Florida or Ohio, there is almost no possible path to 270 votes.
Obama led by a single point last week in Georgia but trails by three this week. Georgia has had record turnout in the early vote, with more than 1.5 million Georgians casting their ballots as of this week. By most accounts, Democrats have dominated the early voters. If Georgia falls to Obama, it could turn out to be a very long night for the McCain camp.
Indiana remains a squeaker. Obama's four point lead last week evaporated; now the Hoosier state is dead even at 47 all.
Obama had a four point lead in Montana last week but trails by three this week. It's only three votes, but could be highly symbolic. Not as delicious as Arizona, but still sweet.
McCain has hopes for New Hampshire, the state that revived his comatose primary campaign. McCain trailed by one point last week, but trails by eleven in this week's poll. This one is diverging and looks pretty solid for Obama.
New Mexico was tied last week, but Obama has opened up a 17 point lead. This is probably bigger than the actual lead, but it's not out of the question. Another poll this week has him up by ten.
North Carolina will be another state to watch early on election night. Obama trailed by two in last week's poll, but is up by two this week. They've been polling the heck out of the Tarheel state this week, but most of the polls have Obama in the lead.
Obama is hanging onto the lead in our home state of Ohio, up by four this week, down from a twelve point lead last week. It's still close in Ohio, but Obama leads by three to nine points in every poll taken since October 23. That's ten straight polls.
Finally, the surprise development of the election, the movement of the Commonwealth of Virginia from a reliable Republican stronghold to blue-state status appears to be complete. McCain was down by two last week but trails by nine in this week's poll. In what is becoming a familiar pattern, Obama has led in every poll since October 2 - that's 24 straight polls.
We also entered results from 28 senate races this week, of which five showed significant movement. The race in Georgia has opened up a bit, with incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss improving his lead over challenger Jim Martin from two points to five. A recent poll in Louisiana shows incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu's lead over John Kennedy shrinking from ten points last week to a single point this week. It's highly doubtful that the race is actually this close, since other recent polls show Landrieu up ten to twenty points - and the poll showing her up by one was conducted on behalf of the Kennedy campaign. Minnesota continues to entertain, with Al Franken opening up a five point lead over incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. The race in Mississippi between Republican Roger Wicker and Democrat Ronnie Musgrove has taken a turn in Wicker's direction. Wicker's one point lead last week has swollen to eleven. In what is becoming one of the ugliest senate campaigns in the country, North Carolina Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole has fallen behind her Democratic challenger Kay Hagan by six points, after trailing last week by one. Dole ran an ad this week that implied that Kay Hagan, a former Sunday school teacher and Presbyterian church elder, is in fact an atheist. Hagan responded by accusing Dole of "bearing false witness against a fellow Christian." While we've been keeping our eye on the main event, we've forgotten all the entertaining sideshows going on in the senate races. It's a nice break.
The upshot is, there's a much better chance that the Democrats will achieve a 57 seat majority, but less of a chance that they'll get 60 seats.
Does experience count? Yes, of course it does, but this election is not about experience. If the person in the race with the most "executive experience" is the governor of a state with a population about the size of Columbus, Ohio, you can be sure that experience is not the deciding factor.
John McCain knows this. That's why, at his convention, he stopped talking about experience and started talking about change. Of course, it's just like McCain that he can't stick with that message either, judging from the TV ads I've seen. Which tells us something about what really counts - competence.
We have a perfect opportunity to compare the leadership abilities of these two men by looking at how they've run their campaigns. They manage finance, personnel, strategy, and operations. They have budgets of millions and staffs of thousands. And who wins this comparison? It's not even close. Obama's campaign is efficient, disciplined, and focused, while McCain's is haphazard, reactive, and scattered.
When it gets to crunch time, it's Obama I want running things. That other guy scares me.
In a previous post I confessed that I sometimes listen to Rush Limbaugh. Well, that's not the whole story. In fact, I've listened to Rush for almost twenty years, since he was on KFBK back in Sacramento. If I were to come completely clean, I would admit that I once considered myself a fan. You know why? Because he was funny. And respectful of his audience.
My friend and mentor, Richard, who knows my history, after reading my post, said he was surprised to find out I still listen to him. And I'm really at something of a loss to explain why I do.
Because he's not funny anymore. And he's certainly not respectful. Over the years he's become increasingly insulting, increasingly outrageous, and just generally an increasingly intense ass. I will say that I listen to him a lot less than I used to.
In light of all that, I think I can say that I know a little bit about how Rush operates. The rhetorical tool that Rush employs most often is extreme hyperbole. He's gotten a lot worse over the past ten years than he used to be. And I think he's not always aware that he's exaggerating. I really think he takes himself seriously. When he calls Obama a socialist, I think he really believes it.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Lately there's been talk about how Sarah Palin is starting to assert herself in the McCain campaign. She's off her leash. If you want to know what that looks like, click on this. When I saw this clip, it reminded me of nothing more that it did of one of Limbaugh's rants. No wonder Limbaugh suggested that Palin should emerge from the wreckage of McCain's campaign as the head of the Republican party. They're cut from the same bolt of cloth. They share the same penchant for extreme rhetoric. And they believe their own spew.
And don't I think I'm going listen to either one of them anymore.
