November 4, 2008, 3:08 P.M.

John,

Did you notice Palin’s blatant dressing down for the cameras when she went to the polls this morning? I know she’s still stinging from the $150,000 wardrobe, but come on. Wear your nice jeans, at least. It’s election day, not a bass tournament.

Much has been made about Palin having been pranked by Canadian radio jocks pretending to be Nicolas Sarkozy (“Hell-OH!”). Frankly of all the embarrassing things she’s said and done in this campaign, it really doesn’t rank (although the staffer who set up the call and handed her the phone should probably be fired). One thing that should have made a bigger stir on Fox News, however, was Palin’s assertion to phony Sarkozy that the French government is “a very good example for us here.”

Where’s the outrage from freedom fry conservatives over that? If Barack Obama ever suggested he was going to take governing tips from the French, Sean Hannity would bust a nut.

(And don’t forget today’s contest.)

—Kevin

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November 4, 2008, 2:40 P.M.

Kevin,

I voted. No epic lines at our polling place, but steady business, all eight (touch-screen) machines occupied with a line of 10-12 at the check-in table.

From a purely demographic analysis, my wife and I were the only Obama voters in attendance, but still it felt good.

On our local and state races we had a number of Republicans running unopposed. I wrote in Howard Stern several times. Baba Booey was my pick for County Coroner.

Sarah Palin finally answered press questions after casting her vote, though she refused to say who she voted for, saying “I am also exercising my right to privacy and I don’t have to tell anybody who I vote for. Nobody does, and that’s really cool about America also.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad we’re not going to have a Vice President who tells us what’s “really cool,” about our country. One of the reasons I’m going out on the edge of Obama’s electoral vote totals is because I actually think Palin is going to suppress republican turnout. The base don’t want her as VP; they want her at the top of the ticket and are willing to wait for 2012 for the chance. Just like democrats, they don’t want to take a chance on McCain v. the actuarial tables.

First results in just over three hours. I’m going to go watch my TiVo’d West Wing episodes showing the Santos victory over Vinick in anticipation.

Note to readers: don’t forget to enter our contest and win free books.

—John

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November 4, 2008, 1:22 P.M.

John,

Before I weigh in with my predictions for tonight, I want to point to your contest once again, for anyone who hasn’t entered yet. We’ve been getting some informed entries as well as some excellent emails this morning from people excited about the election today. Energy is up, I can feel it.

I’m predicting the first surprise of the night will be Obama winning Indiana, where voting ends early in the evening. The latest polls have McCain pulling away in that state, but my gut says that a large turnout in northwest Indiana (which is practically suburban Chicago), combined with the last-minute heavy rotation of an Obama radio ad featuring John Cougar Mellencamp will put him narrowly over the top. (Note the almost subliminal way in which Mellencamp, with folksy Midwest contempt, pronounces George Bush’s name so that it rhymes with douche.)

That kind of result could portend an Obama landslide, similar to your projection. I’m not going to go quite that far. I think McCain will pull it out in more than half the swing states, and also win Ohio, but North Carolina will fall to Obama. The story throughout the early hours will be Virginia where a close tally combined with polling problems will bring back memories of Ohio in 2004 and Florida in 2000. In the end, it won’t matter. Obama will win comfortably with 344 electoral votes.

I’m also predicting that Obama will outperform his national poll numbers. He will win the popular vote by more than 8%.

Finally I’m setting the over/under on arrests in Grant Park tonight at 11.

—Kevin

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November 4, 2008, 9:50 A.M.

Kevin,

I’m not even sure it’s a matter of probability at this point, since your poker analogy relies on random chance and there doesn’t seem to be that much chance left in the equation, particularly considering almost a third of people have already voted and Obama has a significant lead. It’s like he’s up 21-0, midway through the second quarter and his defensive line has already sacked the quarterback six times.

I have yet to vote, but will be heading out before the lunch rush. There’s already many anecdotal reports of long lines which suggests further good omens for Obama. I’ll be curious to see what’s going on inside of my very red county in a rather red non-swing state (South Carolina). I’ll report back after the experience.

I thought that maybe prior to the results rolling in we could have a little fun with predictions. I’m going to go on a limb and say that Obama will win 371 electoral votes, essentially all the democratic and toss-up states on Pollster’s final map, except Georgia and Indiana, and including one EV from Nebraska, because that’s how I roll.

For even further fun, I thought I’d offer a hastily-arranged ill-thought-out contest/giveaway. I’ve got a bunch of copies of recently released titles from TOW Books, including:

• Forgotten Fashion: An Illustrated Faux History Of Outrageous Trends And Their Untimely Demise by Kate Hahn;
• The Serfitt & Cloye Gift Catalog: Just Enough Of Too Much by Bob Woodiwiss;
• The hot off the presses The Ultimate Game Guide To Your Life: Or, The Video Game As Existential Metaphor by Christopher Monks; and of course, the recently remaindered
• So You Want to Be President? by yours truly.

I’ll send a full package of these books to the person who correctly answers my “Third Party Candidate Quiz/Guessing Game.”

Here’s the challenge.

1. In rank order, list the top five third party vote getters in terms of percentage of the popular vote since 1960. (Including 1960, in case that’s not clear.) Express this in a list with year and candidate.
2. Predict Ralph Nader’s share of the 2008 popular vote. (% of popular vote) Closest, including those who go over, (and answer question 1 correctly) win. Please express within 1/100th of a percent.

All entries must be sent to the email address accessed quite easily from the link to the right there. All entries must be received by 7 p.m. EST. Only those residing in the 50 states are eligible since it gets pricey to ship overseas. I will not be able to acknowledge all entries, unless the only readers of these letters are, as I suspect, my immediate family members, in which case, I’ll give you a call.

—John

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November 3, 2008, 9:31 P.M.

John,

It’s down to simple probability now.

John McCain’s last chance at winning this thing relies on a bunch of “and” statements. McCain needs to win Indiana AND Missouri AND Ohio AND Virginia AND Pennsylvania, etc. Obama’s path consists of “or” statements. He needs to win Pennsylvania OR Ohio plus Florida OR Ohio plus Virginia plus Colorado, etc. Over at 538, Nate Silver puts McCain’s chances of winning the election at just under two percent. If you believe the polls are mostly accurate, and you have faith in Silver’s electoral simulations, then the odds of McCain becoming our next president are roughly the same as a poker player being dealt three of a kind, or approximately the same as a pregnant woman in the Netherlands being told by her OB/GYN that she’s carrying twins.

Put that way, it doesn’t sound quite as comforting for an Obama supporter. I’ve been dealt three of a kind hundreds of times in my life, and I’ve probably seen dozens of pairs of blonde twins in wooden shoes gracing the pages of imported Dutch porn. Of course, McCain only gets one hand of stud to pull his three aces.

Obama can still lose this election, but he’s going to have to be very unlucky.

This morning we stand over a broken condom in a wastebasket, anxiously tearing the cellophane off a hastily purchased pregnancy test.

America just has to pee on the stick.

UPDATE: I’m watching Obama vote live on TV right now. He’s spending a really long time hunched over his paper ballot. Whatever the results of the election, know that Barack Obama takes Cook County judicial retention very seriously.

—Kevin

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November 3, 2008, 7:31 A.M.

Kevin,

As we arrive on the cusp of election day, I find myself with less and less to discuss. There’s nothing left but the doing, which makes me begin to wonder about what’s next after the doing is done.

Monitoring the fortunes of Barack Obama has simply become one of my daily routines, a kind of constant vigilance over news and polling and speculation and opinion from left, right, and center. I’ve been fascinated with politics since I was a kid—my first question after getting off a plane ride to Washington D.C. in 1974 was to ask where the “watergate,” was—but I can’t remember ever caring so much.

Today’s vigilance introduced me to what I believe is the most reassuring news yet, a projection from the Pew people based on polling and demographics and statistical modeling that puts Obama’s victory margin at 52-46. When I read the article, I began to realize for the first time, somewhere deep inside that it really is going to happen.

Come Wednesday I think there’s going to be a real void for a lot of us. It’s going to be like after the Super Bowl and your team has won and it’s awesome, and you jumped up in the air at the final whistle, spilling chili dip all over the rug and your clothes and your dog, but you don’t care because your team won and you spend the next couple of days watching the replays over and over, mouthing the words, “we won, we won,” reveling in the victory, savoring it, but a little less each time until the day you just have to move on. The last act is to pull the trigger on that Sports Illustrated commemorative issue that will arrive in six weeks and barely get looked at.

One of the things we’ll be doing after the election is listing the “winners” and “losers” beyond the obvious choices of the candidates.

One set of losers we should be talking about is the traditional political punditry, including some of our most revered names like Maureen Dowd, who has been consistently shallow and shitty through the entire campaign season. (Dowd’s snark is from a different era, shedding neither light nor heat, and she seems more and more out of touch with each column.) Or, another old hand I’d like to point to, the so-called dean of the White House press corps, David Broder. Broder is known for his sober fairness, but one man’s sober fairness is another’s delusional fool married to false equivalency. Broder lives in some kind of fantasyland completely divorced from reality.

In Broder’s Sunday column he is already busy absolving McCain of his worst campaigning sins.

After lamenting that “a potentially captivating experience” was lost when Obama declined to do joint town halls with McCain, Broder goes on to say:

[T]hanks in large part to McCain’s personal aversion to any suggestion of racial campaigning, the issue never fully emerged in a negative way this fall, sparing the country what could have been a divisive experience.

Apparently, because McCain has refrained from making Jeremiah Wright front and center, he deserves some credit. This is like saying a guy behaved honorably in a fight after a series of eye gouges, hair pulls, and sucker punches, simply because he didn’t also kick him in the ‘nads. With all the usual caveats about politics being bloodsport and bare knuckled and all that, it’s impossible not to view McCain’s campaigning as a disgrace to his own past reputation as well as the nation. He has consistently stoked anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment in some kind of effort to rally enough bigots to his cause to get him to an electoral majority.

The newest McCain surrogate, Joe the Unlicensed Plumber, is on Fox News even today, telling us not to vote for Obama because he doubts Obama’s loyalty to America.

Memo to Mr. Broder: This is the McCain campaign’s official surrogate less than 48 hours before the election declaring that the major party candidate of the democratic party, the runaway prohibitive favorite to be the next President of the United States, is a potential traitor.

One candidate is bringing the country together, while the other is trying to tear it apart. I know which one comes much closer to deserving the “t-word” label.

Broder disgraces himself by excusing these tactics. He implies that “McCain had to do it,” because it was his only shot at victory as though victory could absolve all sins. What a total crock of shit.

One of the great benefits of the new media landscape on display like never before in this election season is that people like Broder, who are venerated, but are actually a pox on the punditry landscape and a drag on honest discourse have to put up with some spitballs from the likes of me in our little virtual corner telling them so.

—John

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