election

Not sure what else to say.

Tears all around here.

That's it. That puts Obama at 195 called. Add in:

CA 55
OR 7
WA 11
IA 7

= 271!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news, the big three Senate races are not going well for the Dems.

Leaving the voting booth this morning it hit me. Today was about a simple choice:

- Vote for cynicism, fear, division and handing over one's fate to others, under the guise of "protecting us".

- Vote for hope, self-empowerment and unity.

It's really that simple.

Doree Shafrir, linked via Gawker, did a great piece in the Observer called "The New Old Gays: Remember Those Good Old Tragic, Magic, Diva-Loving Retro-Gays? Swish is Back With a Vengeance! So Gather Round the Piano Bar, From Patti LuPone to Barbra, We’re Taking a Trip to … Xanadu!"
As an addendum to this obscenely useful and marvelous nomenclature, I'd also like to add the "New Grrrl, Old Grrrl" paradigm.
Gloria Steinem finally, begrudgingly endorsed Obama after leading the racist and sexist charge against him, and arguably helping to discredit her favored candidate by highlighting the attitudes of powerful American women of the past that the public hasn't-- nay, couldn't embrace.

In my last post raving about Gov. Schweitzer as a great choice (among other great choices) for Obama, I implied he lacked foreign policy gravitas.

My apologies to Gov. Schweitzer, who after receiving his Masters in Soil Science from Montana State University, traveled extensively across the world as a consultant on irrigation and land planning. Particularly the Middle East (a couple of years in Libya and Saudi Arabia). Where he picked up a little ARABIC.

Imagine! Foreign policy experience not involving arms deals and death raids! Impressive!

I just saw the best political speech I've seen in twenty years. Governor Brian Schweitzer (MT) kept an audience of 2000 people completely rapt and hanging on his every word, and then proceeded to auction off his bolo tie.

Schweitzer rebutted the salacious anti-immigration messaging with his grandmother's story of sneaking into New York illegally on her sister's passport as a 17-year old. And then proceeded to Montana to homestead 320 acres by herself.

And he reminded the crowd how he had assured them that in 2006 that Tester would win Montana. Get this: he then forecasted Obama's Montana victory in 2008.*

And he was confident, gregarious, but genuinely, refreshingly, brilliantly humble.

MSNBC is reporting that 34 super delegates will announce for Obama tomorrow after tomorrow's primary votes are in. This easily covers my estimate. Of course, now they saying Hillary is angling for VP; which, to me, makes no sense at all from Obama's perspective. I still think it will be Kathleen Sebelius, Claire McCaskill or Jim Webb.

Assuming that Obama needs 27 delegates to become the presumptive nominee and that he will pickup 15-20 pledged delegates tomorrow, then he only needs, eh, call it 15-20 super commitments between today and when South Dakota and Montana are called tomorrow to claim the nomination. So, there are three scenarios here:

1. He doesn't get enough supers before SD and MT and we have to wait until Wednesday to see how this plays out.
2. He gets just enough to claim the nomination and the rest of the supers (the ones who don't just wait until the convention every time anyway) declare after tomorrow.
3. He gets 27 supers today and tomorrow morning/afternoon and SD and MT won't matter. I'm not sure what I think of this outcome. It would be great to have it over, but since we've waited this long I think it would be better for an electorate to put him over the top.

We'll see what happens...

Spurious:
According to MSNBC Obama needed 46.5 more delegates as of the Florida and Michigan rulings and that he picked up two more supers today. Puerto Rico went 68-32, which comes out to approximately 18 more pledged delegates. So 46.5 - 2 - 18 = 26.5. There are 31 pledged delegates in South Dakota and Montana, but most likely that split will be close (certainly not 27), so in order to end this damned thing this week some supers need to step up. Like the undeclared supers in Congress, who have the most to lose by this stretching out further.

Please, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Heid, end this.

Update PR ended up being 38-17 on delegates, so it's 27.5

Update Arg, MSNBC's totals did have PR included, but the breakdown did not list the delegates so it looked they were NOT inlcuded.

We watched a good 8 hours of this (including too much of MSNBC's deal - er "lunch" - break coverage); and, aside from a few moments, I found it generally fascinating. I thought the overall results were about as fair as it could get, given what a mess the whole situation was.

iheartirony.com <3's Robert Wexler, who was fantastic.