Well, this is kind of pointless.

The whereabouts of the outstanding ballots, made up of a lot of early votes, suggests that Barack Obama is on the verge of winning the stray electoral vote for the congressional district swimming around Omaha.

All part of the “34 State Strategy” employed by Barack Obama.

“I will remain cautiously hopeful but not cautiously optimistic,” said Hal Daub, state director for McCain. “I’m disappointed (in the numbers). We really worked hard here, against substantial resources being poured into Nebraska.”Democrats said the news gave them hope.“All Democrats should be very excited about those numbers. Let’s wait and see, but we’re certainly cautiously optimistic,” said Steve Achelpohl, chairman of the Nebraska Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, Dix, Nebraska is as red as ever.  And by “red” I mean Communist.  They’re all a bunch of Communists in Dix, Nebraska.

In other late election news, Occam’s Razor suggests that Alaskan election officials have casually dumped a slew of ballots into the Pacific Ocean, or stuffed them in the Alaskan Oil Pipeline.

I’m roaming around to various blogs and websites which are decidedly anti-Obama.  This falls into two categories: the conservative end of the spectrum, partisan blasting fundungery — view Obama as about to appease every terrorist and Tyrant in the book (and more notably merge them all into one category) and implement a “Far Left Agenda”; and the conspiratorial maybe left wing but mostly just going into the realm of 9/11 conspiracy theories who see Obama as a puppet of the Oligarchy — you get a bit of Webster Tarpley around here.

I see this commonly held photograph for both categories.  It is of Obama with a cigarette in his mouth.  A poster at “poenews” shows us it here.  (Also seen here.) It’s a vice, Obama’s smoking habit, which I think he’s tried to quit.  But I fail to get it.  If you assume Obama is about to unlease some sort of a Marxist government and continue to implement the Cheney Agenda of Janet Reno’s Martial Law policies to bring us a prison planet, isn’t the image of Obama with a cigarette in his mouth the least of your concerns, or is this trait more illustrative than I gather?

I’m going to assume that Tim Hibbits knows what he is talking about in his electorate modelling showing that Merkley will edge out Smith, and Hibbits is holding to that prediction.   It’s all about a mass of Multnomah County votes versus a smattering of votes from the hinterlands of rural Oregon being what is left.  Which leaves us with three Senate races that look like they’re going into overtime.: 

#1:  Georgia.  Saxby Chambliss, Republican Incumbent and Reprensible Entity, versus Jim Martin, Democrat.  Last night, at sometime around 11:30 maybe, I moused over an interactive New York Times electoral map and tried to souse out what counties were not yet counted at sufficient strength such that the 50.2 percent Chambliss lead with 99.7 percent of precints reporting could tip down below 50 percent and forge into a run-off.  The check-mark was not there, after all.  Apparently it was all immaterial, the real bunch of votes not counted was a batch of early voters — in Chambliss’s language, “the sight of their voters will bring out our voters” — or, the sight of long lines of black voters.  I look over and the count has tipped down below 50 points — where it sits in perma-frost.  And so there’s a contest on December 2.

#2:  Minnesota.  Like all election results of this type, where the margin at the end of election day is .03 percent and far less than the .5 percent that pushes a recount, the candidate ahead declares victory and insinuates that the other guy is trying to steal the election.  The candidate behind scours around and points to any and all electoral irregularities.  Apparently the recount will run through December.  Let it do so, and ignore Norm Coleman’s protestations to expedite this process — and avoid any grandstands of presumptuousness.
Actually, if you’ve ever heard Al Franken’s protestations of the 2000 Florida Debacle — on his repetitive and tediously dull radio program, remember that smuggly held chant “What Do We Want?”  “PATIENCE!” “When do we want it?”  “NOW!”

#3:  Alaska.  It looks like the good voters of Alaska have just re-elected the 7 felon Ted Stevens.  This becomes hilarious, as Harry Reid has already announced that if elected, the Senate will immidately vote to expel him.  Further, the entire Republican Party leadership — the just re-elected Mitch McConnell as well as John McCain and Sarah Palin (who, I will note, was running against Stevens), and everyone else of note — have stated that Stevens should resign.  This leaves him with the Hawaii contingent of Senators backing him up — Inouye and Akaka — and maybe his fellow Alaska Senator, whatsherguts, in that strange Alaska — Hawaii alliance where the two states back each other up in the their Corrupt Train Express. 

Once we get past this expulsion, Alaska law propels a new match-up.  The logical and seemingly only Democrat is the Democrat who just lost, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.  The Republican?  After an interim Senator — which I think Alaska law wouldn’t have running for re-election based on the case of nepotism which brought us Alaska’s current Junior Senator — how about goddamned Sarah Palin?

For what it’s worth, if the Democrats win all three of these seats, this would have to wait into the next Senate term as Alaska holds a re-election, they would be at that mythical magical 60 Seat Filibuster — though, at this point, that’s basically a moot point and always has been.   But it is difficult to picture a state that elected a convicted felon over a Democrat going for a Democrat over a non-convicted felon Republican, so maybe we can just push this aside anyways.  Or maybe I’m ignoring the rules of federal expenditures in assessing the worth of Ted Stevens?

Meanwhile, Illinois’s corrupt and unpopular Democratic governor picks Obama’s replacement, and Delaware’s Democratic governor picks Biden’s interim replacement to the next election — apparently Beau Biden is the open secret for Delaware Senator.  It’s a family affair.

Well, my night was ruined when my lark-y and immediately repudiated prediction that Obama would carry North Dakota went down in flames.  A very sad night.  What is wrong with North Dakota that they couldn’t bring Obama to victory?  I repudiate you, North Dakota.

Um.  Other than that… Kentucky went for McConnell.  And so my other immediately repudiated prediction goes down in flames.
I’m 0 for 2 and in the hole in predictions made that I didn’t really believe.  As for predictions made in more earnestness — we’re waiting for the returns in Georgia, Alaska (Are they about to send back a convicted felon?  Really?), and Minnesota.

California’s Proposition 8 went down — congratulations to the Mormon Church, I guess?  See, I can be gracious in defeat.  Michelle Bachman won, damneditall, and let the Republicans do with her what they must — embrace her?  Jack Murtha won, damnedit and such is the way those things go.  On the bright side, Bill Sali looks as though he has been defeated.

Right now, Yahoo has this ad-buy up:

I’m thinking no.  Beyond which, voting on a newsmax.com poll wouldn’t have done anything either way to affect an answer to that question.

Sometime last night, I turned around my am radio dial, aiming for 970 AM — Rick Emerson broadcasting from a bowling alley, and would up at 910.  Where I heard the host start with, “Right now, Norm Coleman’s lead has dwindled to just a thousand.  And word from Minnesota is that Coleman is getting really, really nervous.  This is against Al Franken, folks.”  The contempt dripping when he said the name “Al Franken” was palpatable.  I myself could not care much about the fates of Norm Coleman and Al Franken themselves, except that a Franken victory would make Bill O’Reilly’s head explode, and that would provide some good entertainment.

Continuing on, “America is going to regret what it did tonight and woo the day.  We have just elected the most Radical Left-wing Government in our nation’s history.  This nation faces problems of all sorts, and now it is compounded by the morst Radical Left-Wing Socialist Government in American History.  While we’re on the cusp of victory in Iraq, Barack Obama talks nothing except Surrender.  While our economy is in the toilet, Obama promises to raises taxes.”  This was one hell of a monolouge!
“We are forgetting our history.  We are forgetting the Disaster lead to by the Carter Administration.  Going back further, we have forgotten how the Johnson Administration too indeed in disaster.”

Our Historical Amnesia has created a situation where we only remember the current disasterous president, and think more along the lines of “Bush” than “Carter and Johnson” when filling out a ballot.  Or do you recall the disasterous end of the Millard Fillmore Administration?  I will say one thing about Carter and Johnson (or, given the implications here, Johnson — McNamara?) — they’re no George Bush.

Overheard cumedgeon talking: “I’m an Independent, so I hate them all.”  I don’t think it follows, the two parts of the sentence.  Everyone else downtown was honking their horns, though I’m not sure I understand the impetus of a car driving around with someone hanging out the window waving a sign saying “President OBAMA!!!”  But those are omnipresent.  All in all, a Republican Celebration Party would have been a good place last night, just to get a few hours of sleep.

Also, he’s the 43rd president.  There were no two President Clevelands, just two non-consecutive terms.  This is a pet peeve of mine.

We’re driving straight into the Silly Season.  Talk radio and Fox News needs something to fill their airs, Drudge needs something to drive, and Republican bloggers need to fill up their quota of bloviating.

… And everyone’s bored with yesterday’s “Elect Obama and it will be the end of Coal and the Ending of our Electricity story.  So we have the Black Panthers.

Vote anyway.

All right.

The Democratic candidate wins the seat in Virginia, Alaska, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Minnesota, and at the very least passes Georgia into a run-off, if not wins out-right.
The Republican incumbent retains his seat in Mississippi — I refer to the competitive special election here and not the one matching up a state Senator who endorsed Lyndon Larouche for the 2004 primary, though the Republican is going to win that one too.
Kentucky?  ARRRGH!!!  Can I get a pass on that one?  No?  Fine.  Bruce Lunsford defeats Mitch McConnell.  Whoop De Doo.  Arbitrary pick, that.  I think McConnell is favored by any measure, so we can call that my “Upset Special,” even as half of all prognosticators picking at that race are picking against him.  Do I believe this pick?  Honestly, if forced to put money on this one, I’d say no — unlike my previous round of selections which I firmly believe.  And that’s a hedge — I pick someone than state that I don’t really believe it.

Stepping outside partisanship, that victory would do the deed of firming up a trend of defeating party Senate heads: Tom Daschle in 2004, McConnell in 2008, and quite possible a crack at Harry Reid in 2010.  That’s a good trend.  If it repeats itself often enough, sometime in the distant future the choice of who to pick as party leaders will narrow itself to the Republicans picking someone from Utah and the Democrats picking someone from Massachusetts.

Partisan-wise, I think the major points of glee would come from watching the Republican incumbent losting Kentucky, Georgia, with a late feeler of ill will sent to North Carolina.  Kentucky avenges Daschle, decapitates the Republican Senate caucus, and punishes a policy of severe obstructionism.  Somewhat surrealistically, Hillary Clinton has turned into a great boon in this race — showing how political cultural attitudes are never really fully cemented, and in a way circuitously takes us back to Bill Clinton winning the state in his elections.  It is weird, isn’t it?

Georgia avenges Saxby Chambliss’s ad campaign of 2002 — and blah blah blah, Max Cleland — Osama Bin Laden — triple amputee — Terrorist Mastermind.  This is added to 2008 comments where Chambliss careened from a realpolitick observation of how the demographics of early voters were putting him behind the eight-ball to a statement of how the “sight of their people voting will bring out our people” — as simple as black and white.

As Elizabeth Dole fell behind her race in North Carolina, she ran that ad saying her opponent attended a “secret meeting” with the “Godless Americans PAC”.  Unintentionally hilarious, at least over here, “Godless money”, but things became really devious with the statement “hiding behind closed doors” followed by an image of Kay Hagan and a voice shouting out “There is no God.”  What a cluster of innuendo.  Actually, I have to wonder why Elizabeth Dole was in trouble in the first place.  She ought not be.  I think electorates would forgive their politicians for being either a little further to their left or to their right if they made an effort to toss out a bundle of state-wide tours to “connect with the people” — I gather the secret to the continued political career of, say — Tom Harkin.  Dole has no connection with her state.

In the House, everyone wants to knock out Michelle Bachman.  Here, you’re asking a bunch of Republicans to very specifically reject her special type of neo-McCartyhyist Republicanism and for at least two years accept representation from a Democrat.  We will see if this is too tall an order.  There are several other mini-Bachmans out there, but it’s fair to say that Michelle Bachman represents the purest most undiluted personification of Bachmanism.

Also, everyone loves Darcy Burner because when her house was burned down, she was wearing a t-shirt that read “< / war >” … 

Regionally, Idaho’s second district punts Bill Sali again, and this appears to be parody.  And what does it mean to someone anywhere else in the nation beyond this strip of Idaho and in the grand scheme of things that somewhere in the minority party of a group of 435 someone like Bill Sali is sitting around?  Probably very little.

Also, there’s a special place in my heart, to see Jack Murtha defeated.  Pentagon budget bloater, CREW-designated Corrupt — basically caught red-handed two decades ago on that score.  The good news is that any political implications for Murtha’s defeat would be drowned out by the 20 plus Democratic House pick-up, leaving little space for this as a repudiation of winding our way out of Iraq.

Dominating space in terms of ballot measures is California’s Proposition #8, to eliminate gay marriage.  This is backed in full force by the Church of Latter Day Saints, or the Mormon Church if you will, except for 49er Quarterback Great Steve Young, who I think is going to form a splinter faith when the church gets around to ex-communicating him — ironic for someone descended from Brigham Young.

Presidential race?  I predict Barack Obama is going to win North Dakota.  Do I really believe that?  I don’t know, but I’ll throw out that prediction because I feel a little nutty here, and want to make some presidential prediction.   And wave this all goodbye.  Who will come in third:  Nader, Barr, Baldwin, or McKinney?  Nader, I guess, because he splits the left wing third-party vote with McKinney less-so than Barr and Baldwin — the beloved “Libertarian” Ron Paul endorsed Baldwin but Barr is in fact the Libertarian Party candidate.  So Nader comes in third, I suppose returning to his 2000 glory, I guess.

From The New York Times “Caucus Blog”:

It turns out Ms. Palin missed the full experience of watching Mr. McCain on “Saturday Night Live.” She boarded her charter plane at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, just on time to watch the show, an aide said, but the audio on her television wasn’t working.

Unfortunately I didn’t note the “sound wasn’t on” defense when Sarah Palin first saw Tina Fey’s impression on Saturday Night Live — instead going to the equally unbelievable statement that she once dressed up as Tina Fey.  But the first time she had a decent enough reason to make that lie about watching the visual humor without hearing her — you have to acknowledge that pop cultural effect without the damaging implications of the impression.  But between now and this last time, she has actually been side by side with Tina Fey in a Saturday Night Live sketch.  What is the point in pretending that she cannot hear Tina Fey now?

A few years back a woman was on NPR, probably All Things Considered, who gave a commentary which, when I have a spare minute I’ll go ahead and look up.  She was teaching creative writing to a group of elementary school students, I think but am not positive a group of girls.  She handed to the class the Langston Hughes poem about spontaneous raisin combustion.  And, naturally the class then all turned in variations of a theme: their dreams encapsulated in the metaphor of baked raisins.  Her point was that this was not writing, and that true writing does not come until you get past this imitiative stage — which happened when a student turned in something about dreams being squashed, buried, and dying.

As always, I have a similar anecdote which is both the same and very, very different.  I always have that disconnect in comparing similar childhood and adolescent anecdotes, which is all sentiment is thrown out and where she has Langston Hughes, I have a crudity.

Tomorrow we are likely to find one deferred dream explode.  I suppose we almsot could get it either way, except that a female vice-president is still one away, and I’d like a better woman, please.  So prepare yourself for a hefty load of purple prose, as pundits of various stripes know they need to say something to mark this occasion, but can’t quite come up with anything.  Maybe they’ll start yammering on about raisins?  Maybe they should start yammering on about raisins.

It is worthwhile to root through the comemnts left at this post.  Surely other reposataries of similar sentiment exist, and I’ll leave it to you to wander around and find them, but something needs to be stated.  Barack Obama may end up being a major disappointment, unable to fend off the multiple spiraling messes America has right now — previous presidents of relatively competence have found themselves in a state of inertia when confronted with complicated troubles.  Or Americans may end up demanding his face be plowed into Mount Rushmore.  But whatever thc case, in one important respect, and beyond a merely skin deep level, America will be a fundamentally different and better nation — assuming what we assume is about to happen tomorrow.