This is pretty wild:

Among the more unusual measures on this year’s ballots was one in Florida that would repeal an old clause in the state constitution that allows legislators to bar Asian immigrants from owning land. The repeal would be symbolic, as equal protection laws would prevent lawmakers from applying the ban. With 78 percent of precincts reporting just before 11 p.m. Tuesday, the vote was close, with 52 percent voting to preserve the clause.

Italics mine, to illustrate the fact that Floridians are out of their damn minds.

I thought it might be interesting to keep track of FiveThirtyEight.com's projections during the last week of the campaign, in order to compare the progression to the eventual result. I'm sure that kind of historical data is available somewhere on the site, but I wasn't able to find it, so I'll make a note of it here. To be updated daily if I actually remember this between now and the election.

	Popular Vote		Electoral College
	Obama	McCain	Obama	McCain
October 28, 2008	52.1	46.5	348.2	189.8
October 29, 2008	52.0	46.6	344.1	193.9
October 30, 2008	52.0	46.4	346.5	191.5
October 31, 2008	52.2	46.4	349.7	188.3
November 1, 2008	52.2	46.6	344.0	194.0
November 2, 2008	51.9	47.2	332.9	205.1
November 3, 2008	52.0	46.1	346.5	191.5
November 4, 2008	52.3	46.2	348.6	189.4
Actual	52.9	45.7	365	173

Update: They say races traditionally tighten up in the last week or so. I'm chalking up the November 2 numbers to that phenomenon.

Second update: Exact numbers aren't in yet, but we're getting close, and things are looking awfully good for Nate Silver (if anything, he may have been on the low end). The jury's still out on Missouri (McCain up by about 6,000), North Carolina (Obama up by about 14,000), and Omaha, Nebraska (which has one electoral vote that could go either way). Once those are in, I'll update this table to reflect the actual election results.

Post-election update: Not too shabby.

It's Excellular!

This number-cruncher fellow says the networks will call the election for Obama at around 11pm on Tuesday (which is not-coincidentally also when he predicts they'll call Virginia and Pennsylvania). His methodology seems a little light, but it's a fun thing to think about all the same (and in his defense, he sounds a bit like Dr. Ashen, so that's fun).

My game-plan for Tuesday is to spend the evening flipping back and forth between PBS, MSNBC, and Comedy Central (with the occasional stop at CNN or FOX). On the web, I'll be keeping an eye on the nifty Daily Kos map, Hotline's blog, and the New York Times. Any other suggestions?

Update: Nate Silver says he'll be updating and live-blogging throughout the evening, so that plus the three sites above should cover about 98% of my web surfing Tuesday night.

Four things that have made me laugh in recent days:

• The Onion: Lieberman's Overlords Most Displeased
• The Onion: A Vote for My Husband Is a Vote for Me Not Breaking Your Fucking Neck (by Cindy McCain)
• Why you ought to vote (from a bunch of concerned North Carolinians ["It's the only legal way to cancel out your neighbors"]):
  
  
  
  
• And why you ought to vote (from the "Whassup" Guys, from days of yore):
  
  

Funny quote.

The Palin fires, however, show signs of banking. Over at Sheffield Lanes, mention of her name summons no glint from older bowlers, or from Jeremy and Joe Long, in their 20s, tipping Buds. They liked Mrs. Clinton but pass on Ms. Palin.

"She’s always talking about the ‘Average Joe,’" Jeremy Long said. "Average me! I don’t want myself in the Oval Office. I want someone smarter."

Elitist!

Balls of steel, the man has.

Two days after he was convicted on seven felony counts in Washington, Senator Ted Stevens returned to Alaska on Wednesday night to begin a six-day campaign sprint, telling several hundred supporters at a rally here that he would be vindicated on appeal and asking them to elect him to a seventh term.

Actively campaigning, two days after a felony conviction. That is phenomenal.

This is from a while ago, but it's amusing enough that it's worth posting anyway. The Lexis search string that the Justice Department used to weed out those pernicious potential Democrats:

[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!

Thank God you don't pay by the keyword.

(Via Slashdot, which points out that "sex" appears twice, so it must have been very important to them.)

Letterman's Palin debate recap



(Via Wonkette.)

"Lowest common denominator" is actually inapt, because none of these fucking people has any idea what a "denominator" is.

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

There's a word for this kind of thing, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is.

Mr. McCain said of Mr. Obama on Monday: "My opponent’s touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned."

Hypo... hypo... "hypothetical"? "Hyperbaric"? "Hippocratic"? I know it's something like that.

So that's why Obama hasn't mentioned the Keating Five much.