Well, if it's already in the bag, no one will mind if I just sit this one out, stay home and play Free Cell all day, will they?

Voters are just as likely to identify with Sen. Obama's background and values as they are with Sen. McCain's

I'd be curious to know what about their backgrounds people identify with. Editor of Harvard Law Review? POW? Lived in Hawaii/Indonesia/NY/Illinois? Multi-generation Naval commander? Black brought up by whites? Married to a beer heiress? Maybe it's just the "tried pot" thing, or being a C student.

I know he has to sound confident, but results like these sure make McCain's recent talk about shifting momentum and comebacks sound ridiculous.

Results like this also make McCain's continued use of really ugly negative attacks irresponsible and unpatriotic unless he honestly believes that President Obama with a mandate would be more dangerous to America than President Obama with a right-wing minority that hates him vehemently and thinks he stole the election.

I'm guessing that Obama's win will be decisive, but not up in landslide territory.

The BBC has a very nice set of articles on the electoral college vote, with a groovy little interactive thingie that allows you to check out electoral vote outcomes going back to 1948.

There were, of course, some major stompings in the not-too-distant past, e.g., Nixon's win over McGovern (ouch!); Reagan's over Mondale (double ouch!)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7693060.stm

Black brought up by whites?

That would be "half-black" brought up by whites...or perhaps "half-white" brought up by whites.

I feel so out of it because I haven't voted yet. But rain or shine or Free Cell, I'll vote tomorrow for Barack Obama. And I'll vote No on Proposition 8 here in California! (And Proposition 4.)

Danp:
How about a child growing up without a father, raised by a single mom? Or a military family whose service goes back generations? Or a young family raising two kids? Not everything about the candidates' lives are exotic and disconnected from what most of us experience.

[Nabs chernson, carries him to the polls]

If McCain and Palin have even a 5% chance of winning that is still too much for me to escape feeling some anxiety.

John at 8:25 - good points.

Hey Chreson,

You absolutely may not stay at home playing Free Cell!!

....now Jezz Ball on the other hand....

These polls are great...but I will be biting my t'ingers and f'oes until I see the win for real.

Chreson & neilt - you've named two of the best time-wasters; but the ultimate fun (IMHO) was Chip's Challenge.

If you want the grand daddy time waster of them all, it's got to be W Administration wherein players are caught in an upside-down world where idiots and corporations run everything, players have no say in how the game works, your score plunges into negative numbers, there are no winners, and the only hope is that someone will pull the plug on the game before it ends in catastrophe.

Seriously, I want the last eight years back so fucking bad. It's gotten to the point where I can't possibly concentrate on anything but getting republicans out of office. If Obama wins, I hope it is by so much that W's 2004 "Mandate" seems more like a "throat clearing."

If you know anyone with an ass, kick them by it all the way to the polls tomorrow. Then, it's Guiness time!

Call me a contrarian, but I don't see how we can lose this election. If Obama wins, we obviously win. If McCain wins, then the country veers out of the ditch and back up onto the road, into the oncoming path of Palin Freight & Transport, which has no brakes, no steering and bald tires. After four years of Sarah Palin trying to launch armageddon from the White House, a good 85% of the electorate should finally be softened up and ready for a Democratic government. Because if they don't get it by now, they deserve every fucking thing they get.

Katrina II

Iraq III

Unemployment at 12%

Third-world status as a country

A Supreme Court that rules from the bible first

Winky winky winky!!!!

Fivethirtyeight.com is now putting the odds of a McCain win at just 3.7%.

It is also predicting at least a 7-seat Democratic gain in the Senate, this is not counting Minnesota which they rate a true toss-up or Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi which they are considering close but probably Republican.

Meanwhile, my vote for the most idiotic editorial of the day goes to Fred Barnes. Responding to David Broder, who thinks this was one of the best campaign's he has covered, Barne's thinks it was one of the worst.

Some of the lowlights of the editorial include this paragraph:

"And there was one special highlight of this year's race: the selection by McCain of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. From her first public appearance with McCain, Palin was a star. Only one other Republican can match her stage presence, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since he's foreign-born, he can't serve as president. She can."

and this one:

"The only official debate worth watching was the vice presidential one between Joe Biden--or "Joe the Biden," as McCain now calls him--and Palin. Biden made more mistakes, including several whoppers, than any candidate has ever made in a presidential or vice presidential debate. Palin made only a few small ones. Yet many commentators said Biden won on points. Biden, of course, committed so many gaffes on the stump that the Obama later had to muzzle him and keep him away from the press."

He goes on to say the best debate was the candidates' appearance at Rick Warren's church, that the press displayed breathtaking bias in favor of Obama and against McCain and finally that the McCain drop after the financial meltdown is proof that politics is unfair.

"48% of voters believe Obama will raise their taxes, but 50% believe McCain will do the same."

That shows 50% of Americans aren't paying attention, because McCain DOES want to tax the health insurance benefits we get from our employers.

If FOX News didn't exist, and William Kristol didn't need a boy toy at the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes would be doing fluid changes on transmissions in southern Ohio, and trying to convince customers that the small metal filings in the bottom of the reservoir indicated the transmission needed replacing. (They're normal.)

"most idiotic editorial of the day"

I thought Fred had wrested that title from R. Emmett of the American Spectator and it was permanently retired.

Voters are just as likely to identify with Sen. Obama's background and values as they are with Sen. McCain's

This is the sort of discussion that almost makes me want to revive my own blog, and ramble on interminably. I'm unusual here -- I imagine -- in having more of Obama's background echoing in me than most. I'm 15 years older than him, but...

We were both raised in a non-standard family at a time when this was much rarer. (He was in a biracial family, I was raised in a lesbian household. Both of us had no immediate 'male role model,' but learned pretty quickly we didn't need one. Both of us are 'half and halfs' -- him 'racial' and me bisexual -- who are considered part of the 'minority group' half.

We both experienced poverty and government assistance as a kid. We both had a strong 'grandmother figure' to look up to who did the raising of us while our 'real mothers' worked to keep the family alive. (In my case it was Claire, mu 'other mother' who was considerably older than Billie.)

We both grew up with memories of the 'greatest generation.' (Billie and Claire were both 'Rosy the Riveter types during the war.) Both of us had a family that saw FDR as a hero. We both had an important political crisis happening when we were just learning about the world -- I was 8 during the McCarthy hearings, he was 8 during the roughest times of Vietnam. (And both of us, I'm sure, went back to find out what we'd been 'feeling' around us and trying to understand.)

But, more, Obama turned out to be the person I dreamed of being when I was pre-adult -- and didn't because of my own incompetences, wrong decisions, and 10% pure bad luck. Maybe the details are closer for me -- I really did want to be both a Constitutional Law Professor and the sort of person who makes 'retail' changes in people's lives like a community organizer -- and maybe I started from a situation more close to his than did many of you.

But isn't Obama the person, in some way, you wanted to be? Didn't he 'do it right' the way you hoped you would -- and some of you have your own successes? Didn't he wind up with -- to echo the game "Careers" -- just the right combination of 'money,' 'love' and 'fame' we wanted.

I think this is the connection he has with a lot of us -- however we have reached our dreams or not -- 'he is who we wanted to be' -- and he's done it by the principles those of us who grew up both political and liberal grew up believing in.

But even for those not as reflexibly liberal as we are, I think other parts of his story create the same effect and very much do connect with them on a visceral level.

chrenson @ 9:13: Seriously, I want the last eight years back so fucking bad. It's gotten to the point where I can't possibly concentrate on anything but getting republicans out of office. If Obama wins, I hope it is by so much that W's 2004 "Mandate" seems more like a "throat clearing."

I too have been positively distracted since the run-up to war in Iraq (really, since 9/11 when I felt America's collective anger pulling us toward fascism). It has become almost all-consuming and more than a little pathetic.

But isn't Obama the person, in some way, you wanted to be? Didn't he 'do it right' the way you hoped you would...?

I'm a big supporter of Obama, but this kind of thinking disturbs me. I don't want to wear his face on a t-shirt or otherwise overly invest in him; it's the community he's helped create (with help from tens of millions of non-Obamas) that interests me. Lots of people do the right thing and never 'make it', and many others are doing heroic things in utter anonymity (like oncology nurses). They will never be famous, or wealthy; so what? As long as everyone has shelter, health care, work and dignity in retirement I'll be happy.

We are still a celebrity culture, and that makes everyone's ordinary life less important than it ought to be.