could the dems still reach magic number 60?

As it stands, the Democratic Party has picked up 6 seats in the Senate (with 3 races, in Georgia, Alaska and Minnesota, still too close to call), giving them a total of 57, if you count the independents Bernie Sanders and, more questionably, Joe Lieberman, who caucus with Democrats. Now that he is no longer needed to hold a razor thin 51-49 lead for the Democrats, Lieberman's standing in the party is becoming increasingly tenuous, so even in the unlikely event that the Democrats do miraculously manage to sweep up those three seats, it's unclear how filibuster-proof their majority would actually be. In reality, the Dems would be lucky to pick up any of the remaining seats. In Georgia, Chambliss leads Martin by over 100,000 votes, but remains some 9,000 votes short of the absolute majority required by Georgia State Law (due to Libertarian candidate Buckley capturing 3% of the vote). Unfortunately, a run-off win does not look promising for the Democrats. Even if most Libertarian voters go for Martin (and that in itself is no guarantee), it will not make up for the loss of a large number of black voters, which is the reason why the race was even close in the first place. The Obama candidacy had an enormous effect on black turnout and registration; African Americans made up an unprecedented 28% of the Georgia electorate. According to exit polls, 93% of them also voted for Martin. It is highly unlikely that a run-off Senate election will bring nearly the same level of enthusiasm. If the Democrats were going to take the Georgia Senate seat, they would have been able to do it because of the Obama effect; without it, they will most likely be left with an older, whiter constituency which is less likely to pull the lever for Martin.

The Alaska senate race remains very much up in the air; Stevens leads Begich by 3,527 votes, but at least 50,000 (and possibly as many as 70,000) absentee and early votes need to be counted. While Begich certainly could win the election, in most years, absentee and early voters tend to be older and more likely to be in the military (not the Democrats' target constuencies); however, this year has proved the exception in many respects, including producing a much more liberal early voting crowd. However, Stevens is further helped by the fact that at least some portion of these voters would have cast their ballots before he was convicted on seven counts of felony on October 26 (the Monday before Election Day).

Minnesota might be the Democrats' best bet in the three undecided races. Al Franken would almost certainly have carried the race if Dean Barkley hadn't scraped off 15% of the electorate, most of whom probably would have otherwise voted down the ballot for the Democrats. 27% of Independents, who make up a full quarter of the Minnesota electorate, voted for Barkley, 38% for Franken and 33% for Coleman; by contrast, Independents went for Obama 56-39. We can safely assume that Barkley pulled more from Democrat-leaning Independents than he did from Republican-leaning ones. As it now stands, Coleman leads Franken by a mere 206 votes, far less than the 1/2 of a percent required for the victory to stand without a recount. Franken could certainly manage a victory here, but it's essentially a toss-up. Supposedly, the final count should be done by December, but given the general pace of these things, we'll be lucky to know the result by Obama's Inaugaration Day.

"young, handsome and sun-tanned"

How refreshing it is when the political leaders of someone else's country are the ones behaving embarrassingly for a change. After Obama's historic victory, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, best known, perhaps, for his wealth, age (he was born exactly one month after John McCain) and playboy antics, remarked to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that President-elect Obama “has all the qualities to get along well with you: he’s young, handsome and suntanned, so I think you can develop a good working relationship." While I am sure everyone is relieved that Berlusconi foresees a bright future for American-Russian relations, the joke did not go over so well. Nor does it necessarily make much sense. Evidently, it was some sort of reference to Medvedev also being young, handsome and suntanned (not qualities I'd ever particularly remarked upon in him myself...). In other post-Cold War relations news, Kremlin announced that Medvedev and Obama would soon meet so perhaps Berlusconi's comment gave Medvedev a nudge in the diplomatic direction?

what bradley effect?

In the weeks leading up to the election, when Obama was shown to be consistently ahead in the polls, once burned twice shy Democrats bit their nails and hemmed and hawed, spouting out reason after reason why the polls should not be trusted: pollsters were over-estimating Obama supporter turnout (all those newly registered voters who poured into polling places to vote in the primaries would suddenly disappear), Republicans would manage to invalidate the voting rights of the hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters if they even bothered to turn up in the first place, there would be so many voting machine malfunctions that long lines would prevent most people from voting, and, of course, all those white voters who claimed to be voting Obama were actually going to cast their ballot for McCain.

This became a favorite theme for the GOP as well as Election Day drew near. Don't worry, Republican colleagues introducing McCain would wink, all those voters who tell pollsters they're voting for Obama will do something quite different once they actually get inside the privacy of the voting booth. And yet, as the dust settles from a decisive Obama victory, the Bradley effect is nowhere in sight. The Democratic Senator from Illinoins captured 53% of the vote against the GOP candidate's 46%, giving him a 7% margin of victory (as compared to the final RCP poll of polls which showed Obama gaining an average of 52.1% with McCain at 44.5%, a 7.6 margin of victory). While these numbers may indicate that undecideds (who appear to be at 3.4% in the final RCP calculation) broke slightly for McCain, it shows no evidence that those who said they were supporting Obama secretly slipped a McCain vote into the ballot box.

Among the swing states, Obama frequently did slightly better than he did in the polls (in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, Obama won by a margin 2-3 points greater than the ones shown in the polls; in North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia, Obama won by a margin of .1 to .8 larger than those predicted on RCP; McCain's margin of victory in Montana was 1.3 points closer than the polls indicated). McCain slightly outdid his poll predictions in New Hampshire (he narrowed Obama's victory by .6 points) and Georgia (where he won by a margin 1.1 points greater than projected). The most striking differences (and probably the only legitimately significant ones) were in New Mexico and Nevada where Obama won by nearly twice the predicted margins. These differences, however, are probably due to the unusually high youth voter turnout, especially in New Mexico where 70% of registered voters 18-29 came out (as opposed to 49% in 2004), rather than some sort of reverse Bradley effect.

So, in the first presidential election involving a major African-American candidate, the Bradley effect appears to have had no major consequences. Does that mean that it will not affect future elections? No. Does that mean that racism is dead? No. Does it mean that all the racists would never vote for a Democrat in the first place? No. But at the very least it means that when the country is facing the greatest economic crisis in a generation, two extraordinarily costly wars and rampant foreign animosity, an intelligent, charismatic, eloquent, personable, handsome black man with no skeletons in his closet who promises a new kind of politics in Washington can attract enough white voters to win the election. Which may not be much, but given the history of racial issues in America, it really is something.

bad news for gay marriage; good news for abortion rights

On such a historic day, one on which so many barriers and prejudices have been broken down, it is sobering to remember that this is also the day when one minority group in America has had significant rights revoked. Three states (Arizona, California, and Florida) had proposals to ban gay marriage on the ballot this year. All three passed. Arkansas residents also approveda proposition prohibiting gay couples from adopting children. The most depressing one, of course, is California where so recently the California Supreme Court passed a ruling to extend equal marriage rights to gay couples. Just a few days ago, LaDoris Cordell, a black lesbian contributor for Salon, wrote a column expressing faith that, despite historic levels of homophobia (and hope on the part of the pro-Proposition 8 movement that the "Obama Effect" would help pass the measure), "black voters, I predict, view same-sex marriage as the constitutional guarantee that it is." This does not appear to have been the case. 70% of black voters in California voted to ban gay marriages compared to 49% of white voters. Homophobia runs rampant in this country regardless of race, but it still appears to run stronger still in many minority communities. These are prejudices that leaders, both black and white, must work to change in the coming months and years.

On a brighter note, Roe v. Wade had a better time of it last night. Both refernda proposing to ban abortion (one in Colorado and one in South Dakota) were (relatively) soundly defeated. And the proposition in California to require parental notification (although not consent) 48-hours prior to performing an abortion on a minor was also rejected by voters.

The case for euthanasia was also advanced last night; Washington passed (59% to 41%) a proposition permitting doctor-assisted suicide which would allow terminally ill, adult residents to request and self-administer lethal medications prescribed by a physicain as long as the person is deemed to have six months or less left to live.

what an amazing world we now live in

Yes, we did. Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the united states. He will be the first African-American president. He will be the first president to be born outside the Continental 48. He will be the first senator to become president since JFK and the first non-Southern Democrat to enter the office since then. He is the first Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter n 1976, and received the highest percentage of the vote of any Democrat since LBJ. He attracted more votes than any other candidate in history. He is the first Democrat to carry Indiana or Virginia since 1964. For today, at least, the united states of america seems like a place where all things are possible. Never has a country more drastically changed the world's opinion in of it in the space of a few short hours. The United States has a unique opportunity to break from the last eight years of alienating our allies via military intervention under the guise of misguided "democracy building" and destroying our credibility through our toleration of dishonorable conduct during the "war on terror." Perhaps, with obama at the helm, America can begin to re-earn the trust and admiration that we once enjoyed. It will take hard work and we still have a long road ahead of us, but a strong victory for Obama, a black man with a Muslim father elected by a predominately white Christian nation, is a first step toward demonstrating what true American exceptionalism should be.

Another ringing endorsement for McCain

So, when asked by reporters whom she cast her ballot for, Sarah Palin bizarrely replied that she was "exercising her right to privacy" (apparently, not a right that she would want to extend to, you know, women's bodies' or anything, but you know let's not get too crazy here) and refused to answer the question. Joan Walsh's explanation seems to be that perhaps Sarah wrote in her own name at the top of the ticket. Whatever the case, it does seem a strange moment to decide not to make a ringing endorsement of your presidential candidate.

Dixville Notch goes for Obama

Dixville Notch, the small town of 75 (with 21 registered voters) in New Hampshire where polls open at midnight on Election Day, cast 15 votes for Obama and 6 for McCain.  Unfortunately, this appears to be predictive neither of national nor state-wide electoral outcomes.  However, I can't help but find it somewhat encouraging that this town, which has voted Republican in the last four presidential races, has produced such a large margin for Obama.

the final day

So, as we all brace ourselves for tomorrow, suffering from an intense mix of elevated excitement, trepidation, and abject terror, the polls yielded up some interesting changes. Gallup published its final estimate for the outcome of the presidential election: 55% Obama 44% McCain based on their final traditional voter poll which showed 53% for Obama and 42% for McCain. These numbers reflect the largest margin of victory for Obama recorded by Gallup throughout the campaign. Rasmussen's number remain somewhat less optimistic, showing Obama ahead 52-46. This week's Marist poll shows Obama ahead by 9 points (53-44), up from a 7-point margin last week. The RCP national average is back up to 7.5 points (51.7 to 44.2), indicating a reversal of any potential narrowing trends. Most importantly, the RCP average shows Obama to be drawing the absolute highest percentage of the vote that he has since they began tracking head-to-head McCain-Obama match-ups (that would be back in September 2007).

There have also been some new developments in the predictions of who will actually be voting in the election. Gallup polls indicate that despite the seemingly rampant Obamania among today's youth, there is no solid evidence that the percentage of young registered voters will be significantly higher than in 2004, although there will be even more of them due to Obama's registration drives. Pollster.com also notes that in polls which reach cellphone only respondents, Obama's lead is 3% greater than it is in polls that do not reach these voters. More importantly, the polls which have included cell-phone only users have shown no tightening of the national race whatsoever. Many analysts have claimed that if landline only pollsters reach a proportionate number of 18-30 year olds (the major demographic affected by the lack of cell-phone only users being polled), then it should not significantly effect poll outcomes. This assumes, however, that there are no significant demographic differences (such as educational level, religiosity, marital status, etc) between cell-phone only 18-30 year olds and non-cell-phone only 18-30 year olds. I find this somewhat difficult to believe; this might be unfounded, but I would assume that 18-30 year olds who are more "settled" (married, have children, etc) would be more likely to have landlines than those who are single and childless. There is also a relationship between educational attainment and age of marriage and age at birth of first child. My (relatively unscientific) assumption based on these factors would be that 18-30 year olds who rely entirely on cell phones would be more likely to vote for Obama than their land line owning counterparts. Regardless of which way these voters end up leaning, I am relatively sure that there are significant demographic differences (if only based on the fact that not a single person I know between 18 and 30 actually has a landline) between the two groups that should be taken into account by pollsters in the future.

The state polls look slightly less promising. Pennsylvania has clearly broken for McCain in a big way over the past few weeks, cutting Obama's lead in half, but I think that an average 7.6 point margin for Obama still looks fairly unbeatable as McCain is essentially out of time. Virginia and Ohio have both been unnervingly switched to the toss-up pile on realclear, but the latest polling in both shows a slight uptick for Obama, which hopefully indicates at least an end of McCain's gains. Florida polls remain very tight, but it's important to note that not a single poll poll has found McCain ahead since one taken by Strategic Vision (a Republican affiliated pollster) from 10/20 to 10/22. Finally, most state polls in VA and PA have 11/1 as the most recent polling date (the exception is the Reuters/Zogby poll which shows a 14-point lead for Obama in PA and the 6-point lead in VA both of which were recorded from 10/30 through 11/2); if there is in fact a widening in the national polls reflected primarily at the very beginning of November, then there might be improvement (or at least an end of any alleged narrowing of Obama's lead) in individual states on electiion day.

the latest (?) palin embarrassment

So, evidently, Palin spent five minutes on the phone yesterday speaking to a person with an absurd French accent whom she believed to be President Sarkozy. Turns out, she had been prank called by my now favorite Quebecois comedy duo, the Masked Avengers. First off, let's give credit where credit's due, both Palin and her assistant (Bexsy?) seem to know who President Sarkozy is, or at least that he is a real and not fictitious important person. Beyond that, Joan Walsh, of Salon.com, notes that Palin:

Might have known she was being pranked by Quebec comedy duo Masked Avengers when a comedian posing as French president Nicolas Sarkozy talked about going hunting with Palin by helicopter, and exclaimed, "I just love killing those animals, taking away life, that is so fun!" He also asked if Joe the Plumber was her husband, and told her he enjoyed "the documentary they made on your life, 'Nailin' Palin,' that was really edgy," a reference to a recent Palin-inspired porn film.

So, should Palin have been able to figure out that it wasn't Sarkozy? Perhaps not. After all, Palin's cardinal belief about influential world leaders seems to be that they don't need to (or perhaps shouldn't) have any knowledge about influential domestic court cases or prominent national newspapers let alone have any curiosity, intellectual or otherwise, about what goes on outside the borders of their own state. I'm sure that she found Sarkozy's confusion about her relationship to Joe the Plumber and the genre of "Nailin' Palin" to be not only understandable, but the undeniable mark of positive, uninformed leadership.