Gyroscope

5:07pm. Well, it appears that maybe that no reports from Indiana and Kentucky will be offered until after all the state closes at 6pm. In the past, I thought they would report when the majority of the state closed at 5pm.

4:29pm. OK, so now I am reading a bunch of reports about heavy turnout. But still no summary picture.

2:59pm. I'm hearing a lot of stories about heavy turnout, but no real overall picture. Lots of indications in the last week pointed to Obama's suburb ground game in getting out the vote - is it happening? Or if it was, would the media report it?

12:42pm. Election result maps and reports are all over the net. Here are some of the most interesting. At TalkingPointsMemo they go down to the county level. CNN lets you keep track of favored races of your choice, but the link is really buried. Be sure to register or when you close the browser they disappear.

And it appears that Obama is out to an early lead of 15 to 6 in the popular vote, having won Dixieville Notch NH 15 to 6 in an unprecedented landslide for a Democratic candidate.

10:28am. I see that Pollster.com has moved Ohio from leaning Obama to tossup due to a small decline overnight in Obama's lead there. Other states seem to be holding firm. Need to watch Ohio tonight.

10:19am. Worth reading: Juan Cole's Ghoul's Glossary: the 2008 election.

9:45 am. Going to try this "live blogging" today. Just back from voting. No lines, went straight in, but was told that at 7am the lines were halfway down the block.

Posted by John Nordin at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As the presidential election unfolds across the nation, it can be hard to detect the really significant data from the blizzard of words being thrown at you. What you need to know is the expected distribution of electoral votes (based on polling data) and then be able to see departures from that expectation as the evening unfolds, along with which state results are the really significant clues. Here is my effort to provide a guidebook to the evening.

In short? If the race is the landslide some hope, then, between 8:15 and 9:30 Obama will pass the magic figure of 270 electoral votes. If the race is about as tight as the polls predict, his election will occur no later than at 10pm when California is declared for Obama. If it is much worse than expected, I can only advise medication.

First, the over/under figure. Obama has currently a 6 point lead or bigger in states that total 311 electoral votes. He leads by 3 points or less in several other states, but there is no state where his lead is larger than 3 but smaller than 6. So let’s use the 311 figure as our starting point for Obama. McCain leads by 8 or more in states with 132 EV, and by 3 or more in states with 145 EV. So let’s give him a little benefit of the doubt and use 145 as our base figure for McCain. 311 and 145 (and 85 undecided) will be our base figures.

Continue reading "A guide to election night" »

Posted by John Nordin at 07:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

-- that we are on the edge of a financial melt-down while loosing two wars with a president who is totally ignored while he fiddles while it all burns (like Buchanan as much as Nero) and ... there is nothing going on in the street: no demonstrations, no anger, nothing. No panic either. If there are big layoffs in the works, that's not getting publicity either. Though, apparently, the company run by one person McCain pumped for Treasury Secretary just laid off 10,000 workers (eBay).

-- that Paris Hilton, running her campaign for fake president seems more weighty than McCain (she has a video now where she askes Martin Sheen for advice on how to play a fake president, pretty droll ....)

-- that you can shout "kill him" in reference (apparently) to a presidential candidate and the only people who take notice are the Secret Service.

-- that the rise of militarism is going unnoticed (the relentless focus on praising soldiers as the only ones who serve, the use of the opinions of generals to decide geo-political strategy, the reduction of US foreign policy to a series of claims about who we will attack).

-- that Obama has never really said much about what he will do to fix the financial problems and we're all happy about that. (It's not a bad strategy for him at this point, keep options open, but ....)

-- and that I just spent 45 minutes watching "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog" on the advice of a student who sent me an somewhat insulting email. (It's fairly funny, it's by Josh Whedon, it's free on the web) Is this another pop culture thing I'm behind the times on?

Posted by John Nordin at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, there is a bar in Sturgis S.D called the "Buffalo Chip." They have contests for feminine beauty of a certain earthy style that feature such side aspects as banana eating and pickle licking.
See this video for details, should you need them, or just enjoy watching train wrecks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVQHJd_3J7g

So, McCain goes to Sturgis and ---- offers up his wife as a contender for this contest. See this video for proof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RTlfRYLxA

Needless to say, the mainstream media has totally ignored this. Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo is about the only place running this.

Several questions come to mind.

1. Can you IMAGINE the media feeding frenzy should Sen. Obama have offered up his wife for this?

2. Why are there still Hillary supporters planning to vote for McCain?

3. If Paris Hilton mocked McCain - and had a better energy pla n - can we expect the other contestants of this contest to do their own anti-McCain ad now?

Oh well, at least he didn't confuse North and South Dakota ...

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize." -- Tom Lehrer

Posted by John Nordin at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)