Related posts:

1. President Obama?
2. Obama's NH speech
3. Krugman Catches McCain's Exaggerations

8:30pm — MSNBC is showing 103 – 34 with a lot of pre-9pm states still not called. My projections are showing 66 safe electoral votes are pretty safe to call for McCain (WV, AL, KS, MS, TX, AR), so that would put McCain at 100 even. Obama only has 17 outstanding from the ‘safe’ category, so put him at 120. Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri are still the big ones that could be called soon.

8:35pm — Looking ahead to the 9pm closing states, Obama has 55 ‘safe’ electoral votes waiting for him with Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. And Georgia was just called for McCain, so that knocks off Obama’s late push in that state.

8:40pm — Looking ahead, again, the 55 would put Obama at 158. Add Georgia into McCain and I’ll put him at 115. Add in the ‘safe’ 9pm McCain states (Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming), which will give him 20 more electoral votes to bring his total to 135. So at this point, called states plus outstanding ‘safe’ states (through 9pm close) put it at 158 – 135.

8:48pm — Looking ahead to the few 10pm and later states, Obama has a big group in his ‘safe’ category (Iowa, California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii) which will net him 84 electoral votes. That would put him at 242 when you look at called, plus ‘safe’ states. 28 electoral votes to win, with Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada left out there… Florida would clinch it, Virginia/Nevada/Colorado would do it, Ohio plus Colorado too. Anyway, lots of options for Obama. McCain, on the other hand, has 12 electoral votes in the after 10pm group, so that would put him at 147 in the called/’safe’ category.

9:02pm — NY, MN, WI and MI called for Obama. MSNBC has Obama at 175 to McCain’s 70.

9:09pm — Add in the safe 10pm states and you have 259 Obama. 11 EVs for a win!

9:12pm — And everyone on the West coast, please still keep voting! I want to see a staggering, no doubt win for Obama!

9:21pm — North Dakota and Arkansas for McCain. No surprises, there.

9:23pm — Seeing tweets over on Twitter than Fox News is calling Ohio for Obama. That’s the clincher folks. 259 + Ohio’s 20 = 279. Congrats to President-elect Obama!

9:30pm — All we need is CA, WA, OR, IA and HI to deliver their 84 electoral votes. Add to MSNBC’s 195 and you got the win. It’s over folks. No VA or FL. Plus MSNBC just called New Mexico to give him 200 even. It’s over folks. Call it!

9:44pm — read on Twitter, CNN called it for Obama citing it’s impossible for McCain to win. Only 21 or so minutes from the clinching Ohio win. Not too bad…

11pm — NBC/MSNBC called it for Obama. I’m packing it up and heading to bed. Too exciting, too much for words. A truly historic moment for Americans that I’m proud to have witnessed and supported. Go Obama!

Related posts:

1. How things should shape up tomorrow night.
2. "This election is not about issues…"
3. Joe the (unlicensed) Plumber?

By 8pm, the race should be almost even with the states closing before that time sending Obama 63 electoral votes to McCain’s 62 votes.

The polls closing in the eight o’clock hour should net Obama 117 electoral votes to bring him to 180, while McCain should pick up 90 to bring him to 152.  So by 9pm, Obama should have a +28 lead over McCain, with 206 electoral votes outstanding.

The nine o’clock hour should bring Obama 69 electoral votes to bring him up to 249, while McCain should pick up 33 votes to bring him to 185. Not a very exciting hour just looking at the total electoral votes divied out, however the bigger news is there are only 104 electoral votes left at this point, which means McCain is really running out of options to win.

If Obama can get to 186 electoral votes through the states that close before 10pm ET, he’ll be our next President. The safe states after 10pm are: Iowa, California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii, which equal 84 electoral votes. So, given he has 63 electorals to play with at this point, Obama could lose Florida, Ohio and Virginia and still win. 

Even looking at the safe states perespective, Obama has 130 “safe” (polling at least +10% difference over McCain) electoral votes before the 10pm states close, so Obama only needs to pick up 56 electorals from these states where he is currently polling ahead: Florida (27), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Ohio (20), New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (21), Colorado (9), Minnesota (10), New Mexico (5), and Wisconsin (10).  

Including the states that are polling between +8% and +10% difference for Obama (Wisconsin, New Mexico, Minnesota, new Hampshire) will give him 29 additional electoral to bring his total to 159 – leaving 27 votes needed from Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

Looking at that group, the next best options are Colorado and Pennsylvania, which are polling between +5% to +7% Obama, so those two would give him 30 more electorals to put him over the top.  Which means he can lose Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia and still win.

So with that, the best bet for an Obama win is a win in Pennsylvania and Colorado. However, with 243 electoral votes coming from states polling +7% or greater for Obama, there are a few other likely options that can put him over the 270 mark:

• Ohio and Colorado
• Colorado, Virginia and Nevada
• Pennsylvania and Virginia
• Florida

All those states are polling between +3% and +7% for Obama, with the exception of Florida. So keep an eye on those states tomorrow night. Virginia and Florida close at 7pm ET, Ohio at 7:30pm, Pennsylvania at 8pm, Colorado at 9pm and Nevada at 10pm ET. Those results will determine the election.

Update: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has an hour-by-hour breakdown of what to watch for tomorrow on Newsweek, in much greater (and better quality) detail than what I did here. He’s the master. Definitely check the article and his site as tomorrow unfolds.

Here’s the spreadsheet:

<iframe width=’520′ height=’600′ frameborder=’0′ src=’http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pE5z1z8tQQj8E1r5i9X14fA&output=html&gid=0&single=true&widget=true’></iframe>

Related posts:

1. Live Blogging – Election Night
2. Hilary's Math: How is she still viable?
3. Energy expert?

Map created using Real Clear Politics map generator. Data using FiveThirtyEight’s polling projections. All poll projections greater than 6% margin were deemed ‘solid’, less than that ‘leaning’, and anything less than say 1% were ‘toss up’.

Related posts:

1. How things should shape up tomorrow night.
2. Where we stand
3. Palin and Criticism

The McCain/Palin campaign and right wingers sling the F.U.D. better than anyone. Remember, when you go to the polls next Tuesday that Barack is: black, an Arab, a Muslim, a terrorist, a friend of terrorists, a communist, a socialist, not born in the U.S., a man of the streets, a druggy, a womanizer, Osama, a thug, naive, anti-Israel, the anti-christ, satan, foreign, an unknown, a racist, uppity, an elitist, not patriotic, anti-American, and a liberal. (I’ll spare the racist slurs.) And don’t forget, he’s going to re-write the Constitution, raise your taxes and redistribute wealth.

Contrast that with this:

Now I agree Obama is not perfect and he will be hard pressed to make most of his plans happen, but what does McCain offer that gives you hope for the future? Not much that I’ve seen. It’s almost entirely status quo – from economic policies to Iraq. I constantly ask McCain supporters (the few I do know) what does he offer you?, what excites you about him? I never really get any solid answers to those questions.

When it comes down to it, it’s the same as we’ve seen for the last 8 years (and all the Republican years of my life time.) Pro-corporate, pro-rich, pro-profits, trickle down, pro-war, faux compassionate, faux small government, fear mongering, divisive, vote supressing, huge deficit running, national debt growing B.S that is the Republican brand. And it has to end. It has destroyed the middle class, caused the current financial crisis, ruined our standing in the world, and it had it’s chance… and it doesn’t work. Time to move on to something progressive.

Country First, McCain? Please. More like Wealthy First, Evangelicals First, Identity Politics First, F.U.D. First. You were an honorable man, but the campaign you’ve run is shameful and goes against everything you used to stand for… remember what Bush did to you in 2000? Fast forward 8 years and you are Bush – in more ways than one, Mr. 90%.

I’m just glad Obama has stayed above the mud slinging. That alone shows the character I want in my President.

Vote Obama. But more importantly, vote!

Update: And consider this, from Talking Points Memo:

Obama can go on TV for 30 minutes and not mention John McCain even once.

No way would the reverse be true.

Update 2: And add this one: Barack is the son of Malcolm X. Seriously.

Related posts:

1. More McCain Campaign Distortions
2. Will McCain punk out?
3. Krugman Catches McCain's Exaggerations

Today in Ohio while introducing Joe the Plumber:

“He’s a fellow Alaska[n], and he’s a fellow military man who has served our country proudly. I’d like you to meet him.”

The problem is, he isn’t either. But I guess we his name isn’t really Joe, nor a plumber, I guess these details become trivial.

Like I said before, the McCain campaign has repeatedly shown that the details are trivial for almost everything they do or say, from exaggerating or lying about their own records or Obama/Biden’s to stupid stuff like this… which scares me. The details DO matter and if you are the leader of the best/most powerful/leading country in the world, you need to pay attention to details. We’ve seen what 8 years of that kind of approach can do already.

Update: Apparently he lived in Alaska for 4 years, which to Palin makes him an Alaskan. So I guess that makes me from Washington state since I lived there for 5 years.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Palin
2. Palin Part 3
3. So this is the kind of person you want answering the phone at 3am?

The head of the local plumbers’ union says added:

“He has no license whatsoever with the city of Toledo,” said Tom Joseph, the business manager for Local Union 50 of the Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics, which has endorsed Obama. “He has no license in the state of Ohio. He has no contractor’s license in the state of Ohio. He is not a plumber. He works for a plumber.”

And how much is the business Joe works for worth?

According to Joseph, Newell Plumbing & Heating is far from a $250K-a-year operation. Newell is running “a two-man shop,” he said. “This is not a thriving business.”

Isn’t there a chance it could be worth $250K? “Oh, God no,” Joseph said. “Maybe if he sells him the house, the garage.” He explained that the address for the business “is where the man lives at.”

Maybe Joe slept at a Holiday Inn Express the night before he got his 15 minutes of fame.

Related posts:

1. Oh, Palin.
2. Live Blogging – Election Night
3. How things should shape up tomorrow night.

“Just again, the example of the eloquence of Sen. Obama. He’s health for the mother. You know, that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That’s the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, ‘health.’”

So, women’s health is extreme? Just goes to show you – if you are female you shouldn’t vote for John McCain. You’ve been warned. (See the Women’s Issues section at the top of this page. Yeah I know I haven’t updated it in a while… McCain was doing a better job than I was anyway.)

Not to mention pro-abortion? No one is pro-abortion, John. That’s one fact that the right can’t seem to get through their heads. Just because you are pro-choice doesn’t mean you’ll choose abortion. It just means you don’t want white males in power making the decision for you. Simple, huh?

Related posts:

1. More McCain Campaign Distortions
2. Quote of last night
3. McCain wins debate!

As the crowd cheered at a Sarah Palin rally this morning in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a man in the audience grinned as he held up a stuffed monkey doll with a Barack Obama bumper sticker wrapped across its forehead. [..]
After Palin finished her remarks this morning, the man holding the stuffed monkey seemed to notice that a video camera was pointed at him, at which point he removed the Obama sticker from the doll’s head and crumpling it up in his hand. He then handed the doll to a young boy who was watching the rally from his father’s shoulders. The boy’s parents later told CBS News that they weren’t acquainted with the man who gave their son the stuffed monkey.

Update: Embed code not working. Visit the CBS News blog post linked above to view the video.

Related posts:

1. Going Rogue
2. "This election is not about issues…"
3. So this is the kind of person you want answering the phone at 3am?

“Are Americans having an opportunity to ask all the questions and are we receiving straight answers from our opponent?”

Related posts:

1. No Questions!
2. Coward.
3. Links of the Day [9.16.08]