The 2008 Presidential Election seems to be over. Missouri's electoral votes have gone to John McCain and that means that Barack Obama's final total is 365 votes, a number that no one guessed in our Guess Obama's Electoral Total contest. Around fifty of you guessed 364 and Richard Bensam was the first of these. One person — Ellen Bischoff — guessed 366. So I hereby declare a tie. Richard and Ellen will share the total lack of any prize in this competition and may divide up the bragging rights as they see fit.
Turning to the Senate: Ted Stevens of Alaska has conceded and today, the entire Senate gave him a standing ovation in honor of his years of service. One wonders how many felony convictions you have to have not to get a standing ovation from your colleagues in the Senate. I'm guessing if your crime is money, there's no limit and if your crime involves sex, it's one.
I don't think it would be that big a Magic Number for the Democrats to reach 60 seats in the Senate, except maybe as a symbolic point. True, 60 Democratic votes means the Republicans can't easily filibuster but if the Dems have anything worthwhile to offer, they oughta be able to get one or two G.O.P. defections…so 58 or 59 oughta do it. Still, we watch the two remaining Senate races for the sheer "story" of it all. It would be nice to see Saxby Chambliss defeated in the Georgia runoff, not because he's a Republican but because he won in the first place with that shameful ad attacking Max Cleland. You know that ad…the one John McCain condemned as morally indefensible before he started campaigning for the guy who put it out.
I always look at these situations, at least in part, from the standpoint of "If this were a movie, what would make the climax most exciting?" In this case, it would be for Martin to beat Chambliss in Georgia so the "60" number would hinge on the recount in Minnesota. They're saying they might declare a victor there by the end of the year (!) and with a race this close, I'm guessing it'll come down to whenever that last vote is recounted and the election is certified.
(And by the way, isn't it just bizarre that Bill O'Reilly is telling his viewers that the election is over and that Norm Coleman has been certified as the winner? I know O'Reilly hates Al Franken — he's not alone — but doesn't everyone understand that they're doing this recount because Coleman hasn't been certified? Isn't that just, you know, a demonstrable lie on O'Reilly's part? I thought the guy was smarter than that.)
If you're interested in following the Coleman/Franken recount, this is the page to do that on. My guess is it's going to be up and down there for weeks, with a lot of court battles over whether Mrs. Harriet Turkeybaster's ballot, which she marked with lipstick, should be counted or if it should be discarded like Mr. Niles Hooperman's ballot, which he marked in pork gravy. It is significant that the recount is already showing that a hand recount yields inarguable differences from when the same ballots were counted by machine. If your bank found that a human audit changed the results of the counting of money even by a nickel, they'd instantly junk those machines. But in this country, we tolerate a little approximation in our elections. I mean, it's not like anyone's vote is that important…