Beyond Opinion

Well as it turned out, the race got closer and closer and closer, and eventually Ted Stevens lost his lead. Now it appears the Senate will not have to evict him since he isn't coming back. We have another Democrat in the Senate. Further, Sarah Palin won't get into this act; she'll go back to firing people and shooting moose in Alaska.

Some of the other results are: Obama won North Carolina, Indiana, and picked Omaha off Nebraska, which otherwise went to McCain. McCain won Missouri and Montana. Merkley won in Oregon, giving the Senate another Democrat. Coleman leads Franken by a mere 200 votes, and a recount is going on, making this election resemble the Bush-Gore contest of 2000, and Rush Limbaugh is still an idiot. There will be a runoff in Georgia, but just all the Barkley vote would have to go to Martin for the Democrats to take this from Saxby Chambliss, the Republican.

So now the focus is on the future and the Obama administration. Can they deal successfully with the economic crisis and the peak oil crisis that lays in wait behind it?

I got up this morning to see what happened with the election. There were 4 states and one Congressional district that were too close to call. Indiana and North Carolina went to Obama, while Montana and Missouri went to McCain. Nebraska's 2nd District (Omaha area) went to McCain by 569 votes, with Sarpy County slightly outweighing Douglas County. The votes in Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, and Omaha are so close that recounts could be triggered, but these will not decide the election. But the electoral map will be up in the air for some time.

Four senate races are too close to call. But it seems that Chambliss has a substantial lead over Martin in Georgia, but he is just slightly over 50%. If he finishes below 50%, a runoff will occur. Coleman is leading Franken slightly, but Rush Limbaugh is still an idiot. In Oregon the Republican is still leading. So maybe the Democrats will have only 56 or 57 in the Senate. I hope that does not give Obama trouble as he takes us through the inevitable crises that lie ahead.

But what really gets to me is that Ted Stevens has been re-elected. That's right, folks. A convicted felon, convicted of a crime involving the Senate of all things, has been reelected. This is not just a silly joke or something. We have a criminal in the Senate. Of course the Senate will not put up with that. They'll throw him out in January, and then Gov. Sarah Palin will nominate herself in a runoff election against Mark Begich, and if Begich could not beat Stevens, what chance has he against Palin? That's right, Sarah Palin in the Senate, and this could set up Obama vs Palin in 2012. What a thought.

I have been following the election closely and have found the best sites for polls were FiveThirtyEight.com and ElectoralVote.com, mainly because both of these were rich in details; Electoral Vote even allowed you to download its data, and I used that to compute which state would win it for Obama. The last results showed California winning it for Obama at 11 pm, but you could just as well say that Hawaii, Oregon, or Washington won it for him. ElectionProjection.com also had some interest; it ranks states as to how conservative or liberal they are.

The Lichtman keys once again have predicted correctly. 9 of the 13 keys were down, with a pattern identical to 1960; only Nomination Contest, Third Party, Social Unrest and Scandal favored McCain. Unlike 1960, this election was not close.

I predict that Obama will be a Crisis President, like Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. So I am going to add a fourth row to my Periodic Presidents table.

23:33. They are still whooping it up with Obama's victory, and McCain gave his concession speech, interrupted by rude boos from his supporters. So we are not learning what happened to the remaining states. So here is what CNN has been calling. Florida has gone to Obama. South Dakota went to McCain. Colorado went for Obama. New Mexico went for Obama. I predicted all these earlier except South Dakota. McCain leads by 3 with 88 percent reported in Missouri, so this may be another exit poll error. Arizona went for McCain. Obama has a large lead in Nevada, and I have called it for Obama, but CNN hasn't. I took North Carolina out of the Obama column; with 90 percent in, it is essentially a 50-50 tie. Montana has a huge lead for Obama; I have not called the state, and neither has CNN. The Senate went 56-40 so far, so the Democrats have to win all four of the remining races to become filibuster-proof.

23:21. CNN just declared that McCain is the winner in Nebraska. Not so fast, CNN. From what I see, it is possible that Obama picked off Nebraska's 2nd district, meaning that Nebraska split 4-1 instead of all 5 for McCain. Nebraska handles its electoral votes differently from the other states (except Maine, which has the same system). The overall vote in Nebraska provides 2 electoral votes. So CNN only called these two votes. The other 3 votes are awarded to the winners in the congressional districts. The 1st and 3rd districts are almost certainly going to go to McCain, but it is possible that Obama picked off the 2nd, which contains Omaha. The district consists (from Wikipedia) of Douglas County plus the urban areas of Sarpy county. Obama is winning Douglas County easily by 66,945-60,663, a 5 percent margin. Sarpy County is tied, but only 1 percent have reported. I will look some more to see just what happened.

23:05. Well, now it is official. Barack Obama has just been elected President of the United States. It happened with the closing of Western states at 11 pm. There is so much hoopla about him winning that CNN has not told us anything about how these states went. So I will tell you right here. Obama took California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii for 77 electoral votes, and McCain took his own private Idaho for 4 electoral votes. I now have Obama ahead by 337-143, or more than enough. Further, just two minutes before this tremendously big announcement, CNN announced Virginia as the winner for Virginia. I had already called this at 7:15, shortly after Virginia's polls closed. This is because exit poll analysis showed Obama with a 6 point lead in Virginia. A commenter says I should have not called Virginia at that time. Indeed, I am depending on the worthiness of exit polls for this announcement.

And now I will have to admit something. Obama did not win after 10 with Nevada. I checked Indiana and found that the race there has tightened. The exit polls there have changed, and they suggest something like a 50-50 tie, so I had to put Indiana in the "can't call" column. That put Obama back to 260, or short of the 269 needed to win. This sort of thing can happen. I was able to call states much sooner than the networks, but that was at the risk of making a few errors. But so far, I have made just one possible error, Indiana. That's better than the networks with 2000 and their double false call for Florida.

22:45. Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. That's right, exit poll analysis shows that Al Franken has won his bid to become the first talk-show host that I know about to become a Senator. He won by 48-37-11.

22:03. Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. The 10 pm report of states pushed him over the top. CNN called Iowa for Obama. I checked Nevada and found that Obama will win by 8 points there. That pushes Obama over the top. It is now Obama 271 (2 more than needed), McCain 130. I have been looking at election returns. Now finally the DC suburbs and Tidewater are coming in to Virginia's results. The count is nearly tied. I had earlier found that Obama won Virginia. I suspect it will be a while before the networks call it, however.

Arizona is so close that I cannot call it. The exit polls suggests that each candidate has 50 percent of the vote. It may be the margin of error is greater than the margin of victory here. This is McCain's home state. I find that surprising. I still think McCain may win it, especially since I see a huge lead for McCain in Mississippi, after I found through exit polls that it was so close there that it could not be called. Florida can't be called either.

21:44. Obama now has 259 electoral votes, or 10 short of victory (269-269 tie is a win for Obama). McCain has 110; actually probably more than that but I have not exit-polled several likely McCain states, and the networks have not called them either.

Some unusual things have popped up. Mississippi is so close that I can't call it. I tried analyzing it with exit polls, and I got one category gave me an Obama victory, and another one a McCain one, both of these slim. For sure I thought this would go McCain. McCain has won Nebraska by 8 votes, but I see nowhere where it analyzes it by districts. I think there is a chance Obama can pick off Omaha, so I have given McCain only 4 of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes.

20:35. Arkansas closed its polls. It went for McCain by about 10 points. The strange thing here about CNN is that they called New Hampshire, and CNN for the past few minutes has harped all over the place about how McCain is losing in New Hampshire, but they ignored Arkansas. They did not even say that it is too close to call. No. McCain has it. Obama 173, McCain 60.

20:23. Obama continues on a roll. The 8 pm results on CNN gave Obama MA, IL, CT, NJ, ME, DE, MD, and DC, and McCain got OK and TN. By using exit poll analysis, I have determined that Obama has won Missouri by about 4 points, and that Florida shows a slim Obama race, but this one looks like a nailbiter. Obama leads 50-48.5 or so. So I am not calling it. So now Obama leads 173-54.

Virginia is beginning to annoy me. I have called it for Obama by 6 points, but McCain persists with a lead. CNN shows why. Not a single Northern Virginia return has been reported. McCain opened up with a 6 point lead in Virginia just after 7 pm, but that was just one county - Chesterfield. McCain has taken that. But get this. Obama has taken Henrico County. That normally goes Republican. This seems to verify for me that in the end, Obama will be ahead in Virginia. Also I note that Warner has beaten Gilmore, and Hagan is leading over Elizabeth Dole, who I want out because of her unstated assumption that everyone should believe in God.

19:51. Obama now has 62 electoral votes to 28 for McCain. In particular, by using exit poll data, I have found that Obama has won North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia and Vermont has been called for Obama. McCain has won Kentucky by call and exit polls show he also won Georgia and West Virginia. Indiana seems to have gone to Obama by 2 points, but actual voting data persists with a McCain edge. But it does look like a really good night for Obama. CNN did an analysis in which they show that rural conservative areas of Indiana have gone to Obama.

The first results are now in for this historic election, and we have a winner. Barack Obama has won Virginia. It is the first time that the Democrats have won Virginia since 1964. The networks have not called it, but Barack has won, as determined by the same exit poll technique that I used in the primaries. I copy the exit poll data and then use SUMPRODUCT in Excel to reveal the projected percentages. The results are Obama 54%, McCain 45%, and other 1%.

Some people have said that if Virginia goes to Obama, it is over. Well here you see it. Obama has won the election. The rest of the evening will be Congress and Presidential confirmation.