Morning Thoughts

To the left are Nate Silver's predictions for the 2008 election. I will have you note that the final popular vote is currently standing at 52.4 to 46.4 and the Obama's electoral votes stand at 349.

Downright insane that he missed the popular vote by one tenth of a percent, and due to his computers unwillingness to round electoral votes, missed the EV by 4 tenths of a point. Amazing. He clearly stamped himself as the new electoral number crunching guru.

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Let's see here ... we know that America elected a President who wrote about doing cocaine and marijuana in his autobiography (which makes him the second consecutive President to have admitted to cocaine use), elected a Senator who is a convicted felon, and elected a member to the House of Representatives who had federal agents find $40,000 worth of cash in his freezer. (Hat tip Hurricane)

Do coke? Check.
Convicted felon? Check.
Take bribes and try to conceal it? Check
Well, then. You now have the qualifications to be elected to Washington.

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Prop 8 passed. So no more gay marriages. What's nonsensical to me is that we had the new President-elect and Vice-President elect opposed to Prop 8, but against same-sex marriage. I am mystified at how they reconcile that in their own minds.

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The Minnesota Senate race is still too close to call. Franken had it won until Coleman stopped the negative ads and crept back into the race. Bachman won. And so did Paulson.

A little note to Franken, Tinklenberg and Madia: Read Zogby before you start going negative. In April he warned that going negative this year would be a HUGE mistake. McCain tried it-lost. Madia tried it-lost. Tinklenberg had absolutely no reason to go negative, as LWJ put it "when your opponent is trying to hang themselves stay the f**k away from the noose." But alas, Tinklenberg couldn't resist. And he lost.

Franken had the most to lose by going negative and the most to gain by staying positive. The more Coleman attacked him (which we knew was going to happen), the better Franken would have looked staying positive. An agreement in February to keep the campaign positive would have frozen Coleman and won the election for Franken. But he just couldn't resist going negative. I hope he likes his role as a satirist more than he would have liked Senate chambers.