The dynamics of both races are very different. But I'm starting to think that the Democrats may actually get to 59 seats after all. I'm not saying it's anything like certain. Maybe not even probable. But Nate Silver is saying that the pattern of uncounted early and absentee votes in Alaska could well end up pushing Mark Begich past Ted Stevens.

The Franken-Coleman race I've been watching more closely. And I'm starting to think there's a very good chance Franken could end up prevailing. Partly I believe that because of the ground Franken has already made up in the pre-recount rechecking of ballot counts. And also because of the pattern of the undervotes, which suggests that Franken has more to gain from a recount than Coleman. But what's really got me convinced is how aggressively Coleman is going to the mats with the lawyers. On Saturday they tried and failed to get a court to prevent the opening of the 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis.

I think Coleman's crew realizes that a full recount is not going to end well for them.

Apropos of my post below, I'm getting word that Coleman may be in the process of fielding the lawyers for a replay of President Bush's 2000 recount smackdown. And this from the Associated Press gives a clue to why he is getting worried ...

An Associated Press analysis of the nearly 25,000-vote difference in Minnesota presidential and U.S. Senate race tallies shows that most ballots lacking a recorded Senate vote were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin defends herself, says her comments about the country of Africa were taken out of context. That and other political news in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.

Dahlia Lithwick brings us up to date on one of the many (but in this case, too little noted) bright spots of this election: Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) apparent defeat at the hands of Tom Perriello.

Late Update: Don't forget: Perriello was TPMCafe's Table for One guest last year.

As we and many others have chronicled, there's a surfeit of reasons to strip Sen. Lieberman of his committee chairmanship. But one, perhaps the most obvious and substantive, has gone little mentioned. Simply put, he was terrible at it. Lieberman's committee is the senate investigations and oversight committee, the senate's counterpart to Rep. Henry Waxman's committee in the House. And if you remember a lot about Waxman's investigations and hearings and nothing about Lieberman's, that's because Lieberman didn't hold any. Even in the face of endless scandals of the late Bush administration, Lieberman couldn't find anything worth poking into.

Al Franken is still behind in Minnesota. But as they've been finalizing and rechecking votes (all before any formal recount), Norm Coleman's lead has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. As of Friday evening the number separating the two was down to 221 votes -- well within the margin that recounts can sometimes overturn. (Indeed, Jon Chait notes that optical scan machines could produce non-trivial swings in the vote since votes that don't register on the optical scan machines often have evident voter intent on visual inspection.) But, now, as he sees his margin dwindle, Coleman is trying to play the 'vote fraud' card in a desperate attempt to retain his seat.

The Omaha World-Herald is calling the electoral vote of Nebraska's 2nd congressional district for Obama.

That would appear to make the total 365.

The President-elect's first presser:

I don't have any put together thoughts on Obama's presser. But a few quick observations. He seemed a little tight at first -- during the speech and at the beginning of Q&A. But then he warmed to it and seemed much better.

The Clinton-Bush transition was abbreviated because of the Recount. But I remember during the Bush-Clinton transition, Bill Clinton was conspicuously deferential to the one president at a time rule, invoking it repeatedly. At least that is my recollection. Obama was deferential. But I would not say extremely so. I thought a telling moment came when asked what would happen if he and President Bush came into conflict over key policy decisions -- especially on the economic crisis -- during the transition. One way to answer this would have been for Obama to say, there'd be no conflict. I'm not president. He is. etc.

He didn't say that. He said "I'm not going to anticipate problems." A very different answer.

Finally, "mutts like me." A line for the ages.

Colin McEnroe, from the Hartford Courant ...

When you consider the plight in which Harry Reid finds himself, consider this: Lieberman, who has broken violently with his party and engaged in campaigning loathsome fear-mongering against the man he once begged to come and save him, holds a prestigious committee chairmanship.

Hillary Clinton, at the moment, has no chairmanship at all because of the seniority system.

After each of the last three election cycles, we've expanded TPM and changed the kind of organization we are. Along the way we've gone from a staff of one in early 2005 to a staff of eleven today.

After the 2004 cycle, we began launching TPM's sister sites (starting with TPMCafe.com) and building our own original reporting capacity (starting with TPMmuckraker.com).

After the 2006 election, we took that small network of sites with commentary and focused original reporting and began expanding it into a full service news site for political and hard national news, with original reporting, news aggregation and breaking news. That involved our move into video (with TPMtv), hiring new reporters and redesigning the site's main page with the news section you see to the right.

Now that the 2008 election is over we wanted to share with you what we have planned for 2008 and beyond. TPM began during the 2000 recount. And its evolution has been always been bound up with my stance as a voice of opposition to the Bush administration. So the end of the Bush years and the beginning of a new Democratic administration presents us with something dramatically new.

In fact, I think it's important to step back to recognize just how new it is in the history of the country. On paper, there was last unified Democratic control in Washington sixteen years ago during President Clinton's first two years in office and before that during President Carter's presidency. Looks, however, are deceiving. For more than half a century before 1992, the Democratic party was actually two parties, even after the Civil Rights movement cleared the old-style segregationists and neo-dixiecrats from the party -- a national party and a southern one, a fact that created conservative governing majorities on numerous issues. What's more, both Clinton and Carter ran on platforms of bucking their party and its entrenched congressional majorities. For both these reasons and many others, what will begin in January is something this country hasn't really seen since the first half of the 20th century.

So January will usher in a new Democratic Ascendancy in Washington. And here at TPM we believe we are uniquely qualified to chronicle it. So to that end we are hiring two new reporter-bloggers to be based in Washington, DC, one assigned to the White House and one assigned to Capitol Hill. The Obama White House and the expanded Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill are unquestionably the political story of the next two years. And with your help we plan to be there on the ground and and here in New York, covering it in force, fully, critically and down to the minute. We want to keep you informed on what you'd know if you were reporting every day at the White House or on the Hill. Think of us, in that sense, as an insiders' publication for outsiders, which is how I've always thought of us.

Now, the big dailies have dozens of reporters on this story. And the VC-backed internet outlets have not many fewer than that. So we're not going to -- and it's never been our plan -- to compete on numbers. But we do have you -- an audience that is more engaged than that of any other publication covering what we cover. That's not only important in the sense of the general support you've given us over the years that has allowed us to grow to this point. You're also a critical part of our reporting model, our big leg up on everyone else. And that's a relationship and a resource we're going to continue to deepen and rely on as we make this big next step.

We'll be sharing a lot more details with you over the next few weeks and months. So much more to come. If you have any questions comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Joe Lieberman is putting out word that if the Democrats don't allow him to keep his chairmanship, he'll take up Mitch McConnell's invitation to join the Republican caucus. I think the answer has to be, go for it.

Says a Lieberman staffer: "Senator Lieberman's preference is to stay in the caucus, but he's going to keep all his options open. McConnell has reached out to him and at this stage his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable."

I think much of what Lieberman did over the last year was inexcusable. But magnanimity in victory is always a virtue and usually wise. So I don't think it's necessary to expel him from the caucus. And perhaps there are some perks of seniority he could be allowed to retain. But allowing him to keep his chairmanship is simply unacceptable. It's a position the Democrats hold because of the joint efforts of Democrats across the country pulling together to support Democratic policies and ideals and elect Democratic candidates. For Lieberman to enjoy the fruits of that labor after working so hard to stymie that effort would be unconscionable.

Lieberman says his position was one of conscience. And out of generosity more than reason, I'm willing to believe that. But as he so often says, you have to take responsibility for your actions.

And the simple fact is the Democrats don't need Joe Lieberman. He's not in a position to call anything 'unacceptable'. The Democrats didn't get to 60 votes or at least it now seems highly unlikely -- which was his only hope to have any continued relevance or position to bargain from. And the truth is that filibuster-busting votes are often made on an ad-hoc basis rather than on a party line. In any case, there'd be no more reason to trust he'd be there as a 60th vote as a Democrat than as a Republican.

Sen. Reid should take a cue from the one his fictional predecessor once heard in telling Lieberman how it's going to be: "My offer is this. Nothing."

Today's the deadline for our Winter 2008/2009 internship program. See the details here.

President-elect Obama will hold his first post-election press conference at 2:30 ET. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

As you may know the Obama transition team has now set up change.gov as the new transition website. And as TPM Reader SB points out there's already signs of the radicalism McCain and Palin warned the country about.

I've clipped out this section of their organization chart of the US government, which you can find linked on this page.

And as you can see, not only has the president been demoted to a position under the constitution. But the vice-president (as shown by the red arrow) has had his own fourth branch revoked and been reassigned to the executive branch ...

TPM Reader RR is skeptical of the latest Palin leaks ...

I find all this kind of amusing, but I'm skeptical of the veracity of some of these charges. Here's why:

1. The obvious point that in a losing campaign, many folks will try to throw blame around and hope none of it's stink gets on them;

2. Even with Mrs. Pale-in-Comparison being galactically uninformed and generally ditzy, it's hard to believe she thought the whole of Africa was one country or that South Africa was in fact a country and not a region; and

3. These guys in the McCain camp (whatever faction of it) have been unabashedly lying each and every day for months now, and feverishly projecting their own failures and shortcomings onto their adversary.

Why the hell should anyone believe them now?

It all amounts to good entertainment, in a macabre, schadenfreudey way, but really the woman has no real future in national politics, no matter what the Limbaugh/Hannity/Perkins wing of the GOP says. A Palin 2012 shot will be a repeat of Rudy 2008.

As a big of an ignoramus as Palin clearly is, and as big a liar, I'm more than a little skeptical myself.

As of 7:13 PM this evening the Virginia State Board of Elections shows Tom Perriello beating Rep. Virgil Goode by 648 votes.

Is Missouri just going to keep its electoral votes?

I'm not sure this has fully sunk in yet.

From the NYT ...

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia's inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia's insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

With the election over, the McCain campaign is in post-mortem mode. Could they really not have known what they were getting with Sarah Palin?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Lieberman to Dems: Now's the time to forgive me for all that election stuff.

Weak-willed Chief of Staff would be better way for Obama to 'change the tone' of Washington.

Statement out from Sen. Reid ...

Today Senator Lieberman and I had the first of what I expect to be several conversations. No decisions have been made. While I understand that Senator Lieberman has voted with Democrats a majority of the time, his comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus. I expect there to be additional discussions in the days to come, and Senator Lieberman and I will speak to our caucus in two weeks to discuss further steps

Click here to see how you can be involved in the 'discussion'.

The Onion, increasingly difficult to distinguish from the real news ...

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Just now from Dana Perino ...

The President and Mrs. Bush look forward to welcoming President-elect Obama and Mrs. Obama to the White House on Monday afternoon. The Bushes will greet the Obamas, and then the President will visit with the President-elect in the Oval Office. Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Obama will meet in and tour the Private Residence. We understand that the Obama children will not be accompanying them on this visit, but we very much look forward to meeting them.

Back in June we put together this episode of TPMtv explaining just how the mechanics would work if the Dems decide to give Joe Lieberman the old heave-ho, and how you can apply your own pressure ...

AP: Obama takes North Carolina.

Say it to our president.

TPM Reader JH lets us know how he kept up with the latest while waiting on the grass at the Obama election night rally ...

Well, Randy Scheunemann now insists that he wasn't really fired by the McCain campaign in the final days of the election for hitching his wagon to the Palin trainwreck and dishing against McCain to the press, or at least so he now says. But ...

However, Goldfarb did concede that Scheunemann's campaign e-mail was cut off, and his blackberry was taken away late Friday. Goldfarb admits that senior McCain aides were mad at Scheunemann, and wanted to fire him, but he insists they stopped short of that, and instead simply turned off his campaign communication.

Just think what the country has lost by not having this team running the national government at this time.

I didn't know the Scheunemann had almost lost his job before the end of the campaign. But I have been working on a post about some career advice for Scheunemann because the results of the election do seem likely to have a big impact on his bottom line.

As we've noted, the Coleman-Franken race is going to a recount. So it's definitely not over. But if it should soon prove to be over, and Coleman wins a second term in the senate, let's not forget about those charges that surfaced in the last few days of the race. According to claims contained in court filings (statements made under penalty of perjury), Coleman's sugar daddy Nasser Kazeminy funnelled $75,000 for Coleman's personal use by channelling it through cut-out 'work' by Coleman's wife, an actress and sometime inventor who obtained an insurance license only in late 2006. We took a wait and see approach in the waning days of the election, because these were just charges and a lot of stuff gets thrown around in the final days of a campaign. So caution was merited.

But more sources are coming forward now, who make me think these charges, and others, are the real thing. And as you know, bribes to members of Congress are strictly frowned upon. And increasingly so.

So we're digging in.

The number one quality in a chief of staff is a recognition that it's not about him -- a quality Rahm "Hamlet" Emanuel isn't exhibiting. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

We're going to share with you first our plan for TPM in 2009.

In what respect, Charlie?

Am I missing something or are there like four or five completely independent reasons not to appoint Larry Summers Treasury Secretary? I'm really having a hard time understanding this one.

Just at the level of optics, since the economy is issue number one right now (and not just the real economy of jobs and living standards but the financial architecture itself) and you're trying to look forward not back, why would you pick someone for Treasury who was not only in the Clinton administration but was actually Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration. Not understanding that.

Next, management shortcomings and controversial statements about women's brains that got him canned as President of Harvard.

And on top of that, the new Treasury Secretary will be charged with instituting a beefed up framework of financial sector regulation. But Summers was a key player in the 1990s deregulatory consensus that laid the groundwork for a lot of these problems. Not that that makes him verboten -- a lot of other people did too. But it does create an element of of cognitive dissonance going into the job.

I'm not sure any of these strikes against would be determinative in themselves. Perhaps each taken together would not be if the crisis of the moment demanded Summers. But is he really the only one available?

I don't mean that in a snarky or denigrating sense. Clearly, Summers is an extremely bright and accomplished guy and a highly respected economist. But really, he's the only person with the economist chops and political instincts to manage this arduous task?

Part of me thinks I shouldn't be watching Fox News reporter and sometimes fabulist Carl Cameron dishing the McCain campaign's dirt on Sarah Palin. But well, when Mothra goes up against Godzilla, how can you not watch? Here's Cameron telling Fox's Shep Smith that while trying to prep Palin for her interviews, McCain's staffers supposedly learned that Palin thought Africa was a country rather than a continent and didn't know what countries were signatories to NAFTA. And there's still more ...

Oregonian calls it for Merkley.

Here's the TPMtv interview with now Sen.-elect Merkley from July at the NetRoots Nation conference in Austin ...

From CNN ...

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.

Bernard Avishai ...

I confess a certain impatience, on this poignant day, with all the earnest talk about how America achieved something remarkable yesterday by electing our first African-American president, as if the choice has been about race all along. I do not mean to diminish an historic first, like electing a Catholic in 1960; I, too, choked-up when John Lewis spoke. But relief today is not about Americans choosing an obviously black man over a white man, which proves we can come to terms with our past. It is about our choosing an obviously brilliant, reciprocal man over a thick, cynical one--a man who articulates a coherent vision of global commonwealth over someone advancing vague, military patriotism--which proves we can come to terms with our future.

Read the rest here.

Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is stepping down.

WSJ: Obama has special responsibility to get blacks to stop complaining about racism.

From Newsweek ...

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A veritable apotheosis of tire-swinging.

In today's special post-election edition of TPMtv, I reveal and fess up to an unenviable record of getting just about everything about this election wrong, often spectacularly so:

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Secret Service monitored threats to Obama rose as Palin crowed grew more feral.

It may be Morning in America. But let's not pretend we don't still live in a fallen world. We may still have Norm Coleman in the senate. Norm was just on TV explaining that there may be too much at stake in his reelection to allow a recount. Vid in a minute.

Permanent ain't what it used to be.

TPM Reader Anon chimes in ...

Those Obama supporters I've spoken to here at Harvard - and we watched the results coming in last night with jubilation - are none too happy about the rumors that Larry Summers is a top pick for Treasury Sec. He was a disaster for Harvard and has no ability to work with people. For an administration coming in not just on a mantra of change but of working together (and *listening* to people - which Summers is just unable to do), this would be very disappointing. The Obama folks have managed the campaign so well - it would be sad to see them now copy Clinton's mistakes because they don't have a real plan for the economy. And this just on Summers's management skills - never mind that he and Rubin are Wall Street cronies who have enjoyed the revolving door between government and lucrative non-government positions, and were responsible for a big part of the deregulation (especially internationally) that led to the current crisis. (Even Jagdish Bhagwati - no radical economist he - blamed a "Wall Street-Treasury complex" for the late 1990s crisis, and by that he meant Rubin and Summers, whom he called out by name.)

No way we should reward these folks. But between the two of them, Rubin can at least work with others; Summers just can't - and Obama needs someone who can.

You can post this comment if you like - but please keep my info. anonymous. I'm small fry here at Harvard and Summers's supporters are a powerful minority and still very angry that we finally got rid of him. (BTW, things are so much better now that he's gone. Totally different tone on campus.)

Another Anon TPM Reader responds ...

Not to turn TPM into an intra-Harvard brawl, but I feel I have to strenuously disagree with Anon's characterization of Summers' rep at Harvard. It's true that Summers was unpopular among the professors of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (or at least, the vocal minority of FAS professors who attend meetings of the entire faculty), but he had strong support among all of the other schools (the Med School, the Law School (which gave us Obama), the Business School (which, um, gave us Bush), etc.), and was adored by the students. His replacement is effectively a figurehead, a stand-in for the powers-that-be at Harvard and especially the collected deans and office of general counsel. While this is great for FAS professors, who don't like it when their status quo is messed with, it has resulted in a university that ignores and stifles its students and sees its main purpose to be growing and protecting its endowment. Larry Summers, for all his pig-headness, really did care about and respond to students and had a strong, forward-looking, and not endowment-obsessed vision for the University.

MSM: Obama needs to distance himself from a left-wing demanding too much change.

The Guardian talks to Sy Hersh ...

Like everyone in America just now, he is on tenterhooks. A Democrat who truly despises the Bush regime, he is reluctant to make predictions about exactly what is going to happen in the forthcoming election on the grounds that he might 'jinx it'. The unknown quantity of voter racism apart, however, he is hopeful that Obama will pull it off, and if he does, for Hersh this will be a starting gun. 'You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on 20 January [the date of the next president's inauguration],' he says, with relish. '[They say:] "You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then." So that is what I'll do, so long as nothing awful happens before the inauguration.'

We've set up an open thread at Election Central to share your reactions and experiences from last night.

TPM Reader SC emails:

As I watched CNN call the race for Obama, I had a rush of joy, followed by something I totally did not expect: Anger. I was holding a glass of champagne in my hand, and it was all I could do not to launch it across the room (I was in my own living room with family). Then it was over. The weight of the last eight years bursting out? Don't know. I wonder if anyone else felt the same way? It did not last, but it sure was there for a moment.

Have at it.

The scene in Grant Park last night, in front of one of the giant screens airing CNN, before the race was called for Obama:

TPM Reader CB shares a moment with us ...

For my part, the most memorable part of last night was coming out of the subway at 34th street at 11pm to a sea of cars and cabs moving up Sixth Avenue, horns honking. I had not been able to check the results since 8PM, but II knew then that Obama had won.

TPM HQ is located a few blocks south of that intersection. We definitely heard those horns too.

Given his track record, won't Joe Lieberman's endorsement in 2012 be something you wish on your opponent?

Was I the only one who woke up this morning not quite sure whether last night really happened?

9:30 AM ... One thing you may have missed last night. Late in the evening a crowd of about a thousand people started gathering outside the White House to cheer Obama's victory. There was some initial chatter in the right-wing media that it was a 'mob' of some sort that was 'surrounding' the White House. But actual reporting showed it was nothing of the sort. A spontaneous celebration. Here's some brief video from last night on CNN ...

10:00 AM ... We're still trying to get more clear word on what's going on down in Georgia. Last night there were reports of up to two million, or possibly only 600,000 early votes left to be counted. Now we're hearing it's more like in the tens of thousands, though it's not completely clear to me whether the difference is simply a matter of a lot being counted overnight. In any case, there seems a good chance that the as yet uncounted votes will pull Sen. Saxby Chambliss under 50%, thus forcing a run-off.

10:16 AM ... AJC says a runoff looks likely in Georgia senate race.

Obama wins presidency; but did McCain win the day?

8:55 AM ... I awake to the news that Sen. Coleman is declaring victory in Minnesota with an eight hundred or so vote margin. Franken is not conceding, though. If that's how this turns out that's a severe bummer. Franken would be such a great person to have in the senate and Coleman is just such an execrable figure. The only faint silver lining to a Coleman victory would be for him to have to face certain unfolding legal difficulties while still in the public spotlight. We'll have to see how this one turns out.

From the Politico ...

More than 130 million people turned out to vote Tuesday, the most ever to vote in a presidential election.

With ballots still being counted in some precincts into Wednesday morning, an estimated 64 percent of the electorate turned out, making 2008 the highest percentage turnout in generations.

3:57 AM ... Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) ushered into involuntary retirement.

4:08 AM ... Seems I may have been wrong (and happy to be wrong) in saying that Sarah Palin would appoint a new senator if Ted Stevens wins tonight and then has to resign to spend more time with his prison cell. Apparently Alaska law was recently changed (after the Murkowski ridiculousness) so that a special election would have to be called. We'll try to bring you more on that, with details, shortly. This ADN article from late October has a few more details.

4:21 AM ... Now that Alaska seems on its way of reelecting its convicted felon senator and its (little doubt) soon to be indicted member of the House, I realize that perhaps I judged Sarah Palin too harshly. In the context of Alaska politics, I guess she really is a reformer.

4:26 AM ... Now that the "Bradley Effect" seems set for a richly deserved retirement, TPM Reporter Eric Kleefeld suggests christening the "Stevens Effect" -- the poll distorting effect of poll respondents unwillingness to admit they will vote for the convicted felon in the race.

4:41 AM ... Down to the skeleton crew here at TPM. We're still following the Minn senate race. Franken continues ahead by it's been zigzagging between a few hundred votes and just over a thousand.

3:39 AM ... More to be said on Georgia maybe. People have been asking us all night why Georgia hasn't been called on our results map. The results map is keyed to the Associated Press results. So we actually don't have direct control on when states get colored in. But we've been wondering the same thing ourselves. Why no call from the AP? All evening we've been hearing sporadic reports that many if not all of the early votes simply hadn't been counted yet. There were a lot of them. And I believe they were supposed to be disproportionately African-American. And now WSBTV.com in Atlanta is reporting this: "Fulton and Gwinnett Counties failed to include any advance votes in their election totals by 11 p.m. Tuesday night. Officials at the Secretary of States office confirmed to WSB-TV Channel 2 that the votes were not being included in early returns. Up to two million votes may be going uncounted. 'Something's really wrong out there,' said WSB-TV political analyst Matt Towery." That could have a very big effect on the senate race in the state. So Saxby Chambliss may not be home free after all.

4:05 AM ... Kos has more on this. It seems there may be a solid 600,000 or so votes still to be counted. And remember, the total votes in the senate race is under 4 million. So that's more than enough to have an effect on the outcome.

3:33 AM ... Okay, I don't know what to say. But the Anchorage Daily News is saying Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who wasn't satisfied with breaking laws but actually violated the constitution, is probably going to get reelected. And it's looking like his fellow scofflaw and now convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) might be on his way to victory too. Now, bear in mind, ensuing imprisonment might force an early departure from the senate. But then who would appoint his replacement? Sarah Palin. Too horrible to contemplate. The polls were not looking good for Stevens. It really seems like a red Palin tide may have brought her fellow abusers of office home. To fully unify this great nation, maybe we need to take the Alaska Independence Party up on their offer.

3:08 AM ... Al Franken has just moved into a very narrow lead in Minnesota -- just under 1400 votes, with 96% reporting. But our look at the areas left to report suggests that Franken has the wind at his back.

3:12 AM ... Rep. Thelma Drake (R-VA) goes down to defeat.

3:12 AM ... On presidential, McCain has now taken Montana. A close look at Missouri suggests McCain will pull it out by a razor thin margin. And our AP results of North Carolina have a 100% reporting and Obama up by about 10k votes. I'm not completely sure why NC hasn't been called yet. But assuming McCain takes Missouri and Obama takes NC, that would leave us with Obama winning with 364 electoral votes.

3:28 AM ... I don't know if irony is the word for this. But if this bears out, I'm sure this will be grist for a lot of discussion. According to the AP's analysis of the exit polls in California: "Blacks turning out in droves to support Obama also threw their support strongly behind Proposition 8, which would overturn the state Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage. Opposition to the ban held a slight edge among whites, while Lations and Asians were split."

1:57 AM ... Our in-house number cruncher, Eric Kleefeld, says it's looking better and better for Franken. At this moment, our results map has Franken down by less than 2k votes. But Eric says the areas yet to fully report tend to be the more Democratic ones.

2:06 AM ... Still too close to call. But some possible really bad news out of California. The initial exits showed Prop 8 going down. But they've now been adjusted to show a possible victory. We're trying to find out more.

2:13 AM ... Nets call Indiana for Obama. And suddenly Missouri is tied. Our AP results show 100% reporting in NC with Obama up by over 10k votes. So we're not completely sure why that hasn't been called. But we'll try to find out more.

2:32 AM ... Franken-Coleman race is truly down to the wire. A matter of a couple hundred votes at the moment, with, seemingly, a Dem advantage among the areas remaining to report. Seems very possible this one goes to a recount, regardless of which guy wins.

2:34 AM ... We're still trying to find out more about Prop 8 in California. If you know of sites or blogs that have a good read on how the remaining counties seem likely to come in, drop us a line. Our grasp of California Dems and counties is not all it should be -- which is a bit embarrassing since I grew up there.

2:47 AM ... Kanjorski pulls it out in PA-11.

2:53 AM ... TPM Reader JT reports in from Chattanooga, Tenn. "From Chattanooga, Tennessee. At 1 a.m. in front of a bar on ML King Boulevard. We may not have turned Tennessee around, but there's plenty of happy folks (black and white) tonight in the red states, too."

3:00 AM ... Picture still seems very uncertain on Prop 8 in California. Getting some word from readers who appear to be in the know (in terms of knowing how to read the remaining results to come in) and they seem pessimistic ... Other readers though are not so sure -- a lot of question which parts of LA County are yet to report.

1:02 AM ... Hardcore winger Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) goes down, according to the Denver Post.

1:04 AM ... TPM's David Kurtz reacts to Obama's victory speech, from on the scene at Grant Park ...

1:19 AM ... It's starting to look promising for Al Franken in Minnesota. According to our results map he's down by like 7k votes, with just under 80% reporting. But a lot of the big Democratic strongholds are still to fully report. Definitely doable. We'll have to wait and see.

1:37 AM ... And here's the speech David was reacting to, Obama's acceptance speech ...

12:41 AM ... Indiana and North Carolina are looking very promising. And Missouri is still possible.

12:56 AM ... Missouri looking like a tougher climb.

12:59 AM ... TPM Reader AL reports in from Missouri ...

I thought I would give you some insight on Missouri from a resident.

Right now, Missouri is looking like it is going to be REALLY close. I look to Sen. McCaskill's victory in 2004 for the size margin that we will be looking at. Obama seems likely to win.

Key counties in Missouri are going for Obama by bigger margins than they went for Kerry in 2004. Greene County, where Springfield is located, went for McCain 57-41 compared to Bush 62-37. Boone County, where Columbia is located, went for Bush 49.7-49.5. It has gone for Obama 55-43, indicating a large turnout from the University of Missouri. Another key county is St. Charles County, in the suburbs of St. Louis. It went for Bush 59-41. It has deflated for McCain to 54-45. So those results already in bode well for Obama, albeit narrowly.

The counties still out are the deciding factor in Missouri. St. Louis City and Jackson County (Kansas City) are both at around 90% in, and Obama is getting huge margins there. The big wild cards still out are suburbs. St. Louis County is 58-41 for Obama with 93% in. In 2004, it was 54-45 Kerry. And the biggest hope for McCain is Clay County, in suburban Kansas City. It has not reported any results yet, and there are roughly 100,000 votes up for grabs there. Bush won in 2004 by 53-46.

Basically, if you want to know if Missouri will go Obama, look at Clay County. If it is tied or if Obama leads, Obama will take Missouri. If McCain is leading, McCain will pull out the victory. I look for the final margin to be about 15,000 votes.

11:51 PM ... North Carolina Republican, Robin Hayes, who said liberals hate America, loses his seat.

11:56 PM ... Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) reacts ...

12:13 PM ... TPM's David Kurtz talks to New Yorker editor David Remnick about the election result from the press room in Grant Park ...

12:15 PM ... As you know Barack Obama is the first African-American President. What puts it in perspective for me is that he is only the third African-American to be elected to the senate since Reconstruction.

12:20 PM ... Not looking good for Virgil Goode.

12:12 PM ... I had one moment of doubt. At 9:12 I IM'd my wife: "Getting a touch nervous."

11:13 PM ... AP calling Florida for Obama. But so far only AP.

11: 16 PM ... NBC calls FLA too.

11:21 PM ... McCain in midst of concession speech. Gracious, invoking historic nature of Obama's win.

11:27 PM ... Nets calling Arizona for McCain.

11:34 PM ... AP on McCain's call to Obama. "Barack Obama has accepted John McCain's concession and has asked his Republican rival for help in leading the country."

11:37 PM .. Nets calling Nevada for Obama.

11:41 PM ... We're digging into the Missouri numbers. Reasons for cautious optimism.

11:43 PM ... TPM Reader SS reports in from 14th & U Street in DC ...

11:50 PM ... Starting to look good in NC.

It's over.

Late Update: TPM's David Kurtz reports from Grant Park just after Obama's victory is announced ...

Why can't Obama close the deal?

(ed.note: Special co-thinking credit to TPM Reader KB)

10:17 PM ... Here are the numbers to consider. At present, with the called states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, Obama has 202 electoral votes. If Obama wins California, Oregon and Washington, which have never really been in doubt, he moves to 275. And he wins the presidency.

10:29 PM ... Hmmm. Fox withdrawing its call for Wicker in Mississippi.

10:30 PM ... Multiple networks calling a Murtha win.

10:40 PM ... We may be 20 minutes out from the nets calling the whole thing for Obama.

10:42 PM ... Latest from Virginia. With 90% reporting, Obama up 51%-49% in Virginia, a margin of 51,000 votes. And from what I can tell it's Obama areas still to report. This is starting to look good.

10:44 PM ... Fox calls Virginia. But so for only Fox, and they've been out ahead on every call.

Obama can't win.

9:56 PM ... They're way ahead of the curve. But the Rocky Mountain News is calling Colorado for Obama. Let's wait and see on this one. None of the nets are calling it.

9:58 PM ... Chris Shays, last House GOPer in the Northeast concedes defeat.

10:00 PM ... Nets call Iowa for Obama. This was definitely expected. But it was a 2004 red state.

10:02 PM ... County totals continue to look good for Obama in Florida.

A lot of states are still out. But with Pennsylvania, New Mexico and especially Ohio, this race is all but over. Obviously, if the networks projections are wrong in Ohio or PA, all bets are off. But assuming those calls stay in place, it's virtually impossible to see how McCain wins. He would have to win a big blue state to get back into the race. And I just can't see one on the map. There aren't any more available that were even remotely in contention. Things are looking extremely good for Barack Obama.

McCain chief economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a serious academic economist, has to defend calling Obama a socialist.

9:23 PM ... MSNBC and Fox call Ohio for Obama.

9:29 PM ... For the moment, I'm not sure what else I have to say.

9:31 PM ... Fox and MSNBC have now called New Mexico for Obama. At this point, McCain must win a major blue state to win. But none seem likely. Pennsylvania was the place to do it.

9:40 PM ... Still hearing that McCain is underperforming in critical parts of Florida. So looking promising. But don't pop any Florida corks.

9:42 PM ... Stephanopoulos: With Ohio and PA for Obama, "unless something staggering happens, it's hard to see how McCain gets to 270."

8:59 PM ... We're watching the Virginia exit really closely. They're starting to adjust them now against actual returns. They've now tightened a bit in McCain's direction. They're now at 52%-46% for Obama. So looks promising but this one is definitely still wait and see.

9:03 PM ... We've got the first unadjusted exit out of the Minnesota. And it's Franken 47%, Coleman 37%. But that's unadjusted. So don't put too much stock in it.

9:10 PM ... Chuck Todd bumming me out.

9:11 PM ... Would really like to see a red state.

9:15 PM ... Mike Murphy has taken it upon himself to make me feel a bit better. He's looking at the Florida numbers and he sees McCain underperforming in key Republican parts of the state.

9:20 PM ... Fox and I want to stress ONLY FOX is now calling Ohio for Obama. If that pans out, I'd say we're looking at our next president. But no other network so far. And Fox has been really aggressive in calling states.

8:42 PM ... Obama's holding Pennsylvania is a very key win. For now, though, remember, Obama has yet to poach a red state. It's not looking good at all for McCain. But it's not over.

8:43 PM ... It's looking like Chambliss and McConnell are going to hold on; which means the Dems would have to pick up the Mississippi seat to hit 60. So the odds on that are looking long.

8:45 PM ... Special Treat: looks like Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), big pal of Jack Abramoff and really unpleasant guy, seems to be going down the drain. (Two nets have now called it for his opponent -- sounds like he's done.)

8:47 PM ... FYI, MSNBC and Fox have now both called Georgia for McCain.

8:18 PM ... Fox and CBS call North Carolina for Hagan; retiring Liddy Dole.

8:22 PM ... McCain bids farewell to campaign reporters (this is video from earlier today) ...

8:30 PM ...Nets called Shaheen (NH) and Hagan (NC) winning their senate seats.

7:43 PM ... One thing you can see really clearly tonight is the extreme reticence the networks have about calling or even loosely predicting the winners and losers in states. That's a very good thing. But you can feel the cold hand of 2004 hanging over the predictors this time.

7:50 PM ... Initial exits out of North Carolina and Ohio, computed on the same basis as those below.

North Carolina: Obama 51%, McCain 48%
Ohio: Obama 53%, McCain 45%

Remember, they're exit polls. As my grandpa might have said, that and two bits will get you a cup of coffee.

7:55 PM ... Telling moment. Ohio GOP Ken Blackwell telling MSNBC that Obama is doing so well because he's "adopted the language of the Reagan coalition."

8:01 PM ... MSNBC just called PA for Obama. But as far as we can tell they're the only ones so far. If that turns out true, it's a huge setback for McCain. And we don't "call" states until at least two networks do.

8:03 PM ... PA Exits: Obama 57%, McCain 42%

8:04 PM ... ABC calls PA for Obama.

TPM Reader DW checks in from Chicago ...

Dems are liking what they're seeing in this bellweather county in Indiana.

7 PM is a critical hour. Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina and Vermont.

As I wrote earlier, Virginia is critical. It's looked good in the polls for Obama. And if he takes it, McCain is almost out of options.

Watch Virginia.

Late Update: Exits looking very encouraging for Obama in Virginia.

Switching to Live Blogging Mode ...

7:21 PM ... In the states that are now closed we now have the officially released exit polls. We have the gender breakdown of the electorate and the topline breakdown of how each gender voted. So with a few simple calculations they amount to this ...

Georgia: McCain 50%, Obama 48%
Indiana: Obama 52%, McCain 46%
Virginia: Obama 54%, McCain 45%

Remember. I can't emphasize this enough. These are just exit polls. They're not always right. Kerry's numbers looked very similar. I remember it well.

We're only getting very early indications now from Indiana. But a mix of the exit polls, which suggests a decent Obama win and early returns at least suggests that it's a real race. And if it's a real race in Indiana, that portends a pretty long night for John McCain.

Howard Fineman just had a very interesting point on Chris Matthews' show. Pennsylvania is the only state where the state party pushed the Rev. Wright card really hard. And it seems they may now be reaping the whirlwind with extremely high African-American turnout in Philly and throughout the state.

We interview Karl Erik Stougaard, the U.S. correspondent for a major Danish newspaper:

The current round of exits are showing Obama up in pretty much all the toss up states. But remember, they said that about John Kerry too. And he's still a senator from Massachusetts.

The exit polls we're seeing suggest a substantial Obama victory. That's encouraging. However, I have to emphasize that they showed something very similar with Kerry four years ago. I don't think the result will be same. But there's probably some ancient proverb -- put not your faith in exit polls. Let's see some real results.

Late RNC robocall in Florida: Castro wants Obama to win.

We're getting in a flurry of exit poll data, some from official sources (the stuff you can see on the networks) and others leaked. You have to remember, the early unweighted 2004 exits were grossly inaccurate. So we're trying to plow through the numbers and try to sift the fog from the real information.

More soon.

Late Update: Remember, these are exit polls are that are often unreliable. So take these as hints, not facts. The early exits we're seeing out of Virginia suggest a close race with an advantage to Obama. The split of the white vote looks similar to what Jim Webb got in 2006, but with blacks making up a substantially larger percentage of the electorate.

From the Indianapolis Star ...

The removal of two Republican election workers from a Warren Township polling site - for using improper methods to challenge voters' rights to cast a ballot - has prompted local Republican Party leaders to issue a statement of regret.

The two officials - an official challenger and a clerk - were removed by unanimous vote of the Marion County Election Board.

The officials were reportedly challenging voters with information obtained through party affiliation reports, which is not one of the accepted challenges such as a person's address, age or lack of ID.

"We were disappointed to hear of the incident regarding these two workers. The Marion County Republican Party was not aware of these alleged activities, nor did the Party instruct any worker to engage in such behavior," Marion County Republican Party Chairman Tom John said in a statement issued at 2 p.m.

Voting lines in the West Village ...

We live in Chelsea, probably not much more than a mile from where this video was taken, but a different neighborhood. Millet and my experience this morning was pretty painless compared to a lot things we're hearing about -- but still a crazy amount of turnout compared to previous elections.

It's hard for the GOP and Fox News to give up on whipping up fears that Obama is going to set up a black dictatorship in America where sundry pimps and gangbangers will replace the civil service and institute a reign of racial terror and compulsory miscegenation. Fox and the McCain campaign are pushing hard on this story of two men outside a polling place in Philly dressed in Black Panther garb. People affiliated with the McCain campaign showed up, to photograph or possibly provoke an incident. The police were called. One of the two guys was asked to leave; and he left. The other guys turned out to be an official poll watcher. That was probably the best resolution. As near as we can tell there's all sort of misinformation being disseminated about whites being prevented from voting, etc. We talked to an Obama campaign volunteer who saw the whole thing. And you can see her account here. This is just a kinder, gentler version of the Ashley Todd 'Carved B' mumbojumbo, another desperate Republican attempt to whip up racial hysteria to give them hope of winning the election.

CNN is conducting a live election day phone interview with Joe the Plumber.

We've set up special threads at TPM Election Central for you to share your election day experiences.

Here's one report from Maryland ...

My polling place is at the fairgrounds in Southern Maryland, about 40 minutes from Washington, D.C. This used to be tobacco country, but is slowly being developed, or other crops are grown. We waited until 10:00 to vote, to avoid the lines. When we got there a 97-year-old Black man was being wheeled out of the polls in his wheelchair. It was the first time he had ever voted in his life. When he came outside he asked if anyone could give him an Obama button. There were none left at the Democrat's booth so I gave him mine. He was so proud and I started crying. He looked at me and said, "why are you crying? this is a day for glory." I am still crying.

Here's the earlier discussion thread from this morning, which had already filled up to 400+ comments.

The last time I was in Grant Park I was staggering across the finish line of the Chicago marathon. Things don't look nearly so grim for Obama ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

With all the back and forth in the polls and all the theorizing, sometimes it's good to go back and look at one of the electoral vote calculator maps. Here's CNN's. For everything I said below, if McCain can't win Pennsylvania (final polls), which none of the polls suggest he is likely to do, he's really up the creek. If he can't win Virginia (final polls), which is closer but still less than likely according to the polls, he's basically done.

Don't get me wrong. My point here is not to suggest that the election is in the bag. It's not. It's only to focus your attention on two states that may tell us the story early.

There are a lot of ways for Obama to win; that's the easiest and most likely.

Virginia starts reporting at 7pm, Pennsylvania at 8 pm.

We talk to an actual eyewitness witness on the scene in that bogus 'black panther' voter intimidation story Drudge and Fox are pushing.

We're all Joe the Plumber.

First results in three and a half hours!

From their front page, Fox News does its best to sow confusion and fear about the election and what's happening at the ballot box. Truly loathsome people.

The first thread grew so long that we've started another.

If you want to get charged up, take a look.

Obama in Manassas last night ...

I didn't title this post 'what to expect' because I'm too temperamentally cautious, even in the privacy of my own thoughts, to get into predictions. But I wanted to give people a sense of what key moments and events to watch to know where we're heading as we move into the evening and toward the final result. Think of this as an arm chair guide to watching the election results stating at 6 PM Eastern this evening.

The key dynamic in the presidential contest is that John McCain is on the defensive everywhere. He has a path to victory. But it requires him to win virtually every state that is currently a toss up or in which he is only narrowly behind. Indeed, it requires him to win at least a couple states in which he's significantly behind. So as we watch the results come in across the country, you can watch for a series of about half a dozen states. And if Obama wins any of those, the race is probably his.

So, first, when do the polls close. If you click here, we've created an interactive map with the poll closing times across the country. This is a match for watching returns, not knowing when polls close in your area. So all the times are in Eastern time.

First, the short version, if you don't want all the details. The first key is Virginia at 7 PM. If Obama takes Virginia, where he's ahead, he'll almost certainly take Pennsylvania (at 8 PM) too. And that will pretty much be it for McCain. Between 6PM and 8 PM there are five other states: Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina. These are all basically toss-ups with a few slight leads for Obama. If McCain is losing in any of them, he's probably done.

Now, the longer version.

(If you want to see the final poll results in any of these states, click here.)

So let's go hour by hour. At 6 PM Eastern, we have Indiana and Kentucky. Indiana is really tight. But McCain is narrowly ahead. If Indiana is trending toward Obama, very bad news for McCain. But figure it goes for McCain.

7 PM is when we'll get our first real information. Four key states start reporting: New Hampshire, Virginia, Georgia and Florida. The key state to watch here is Virginia. That's been Obama's biggest red state beachhead, at least on the east coast. It's closed at least somewhat over the last week or so. But it's mainly been McCain regaining some of the people he lost during the heat of the financial crisis. Obama seems to have consolidated his lead at around 51%. If Obama can win Virginia, it's very bleak for McCain. It's not the end of the world for Obama if McCain wins Virginia, but it does give McCain some hope. Of course, bad news for McCain out of Georgia or Florida would basically mean it was over too. Georgia still seems likely for McCain though, if close. And I doubt we'll know what's happening in Florida until later since that's really close. So for the early sign, watch Virginia. That could be the early call that predicts the rest of the night.

At 7:30 PM, Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia start reporting. West Virginia almost certainly goes for McCain. Ohio and North Carolina are two more states that McCain has to win. Obama could lose both and still win the election. If McCain loses either, it's pretty much over -- much like Florida or Georgia.

Next up, 8 PM. This is when the real mother-lode of states come in -- particularly Pennsylvania and Missouri. Pennsylvania is in many ways the key state in the evening. Almost all of McCain's paths to victory require him to poach Pennsylvania out of the blue column. But even though he's closed the gap a bit, Obama's still about eight points up. And the closing -- like in Virginia -- is McCain getting back numbers he lost during the financial crisis. Obama has consolidated his lead at a bit over 51%. If Obama holds PA, which seems likely, it's bleak for McCain. Missouri is dead even -- another state McCain has to hold but Obama can afford to lose.

8:30 PM, Arkansas. McCain.

9:00 PM. A number of states report, but only three really seem in play. New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. New Mexico seems very strong for Obama. Colorado, too, but a bit closer. Assume both of those go for Obama. But not a certainty in Colorado. Arizona is actually a toss-up with a thin McCain lead. If Obama's making a fight of it there it'll only be the final indignity of a long night for McCain.

10 PM. Nevada, another red state which seems likely to go blue. But it's not for sure. If McCain's had a much better night than people expect in the East and Midwest, Nevada could become critical. After ten, it's mainly states that are sure for one either Obama or McCain.

That's my basic read. You'll probably see other things I don't. If you disagree on a key point, let me know and I'll revise the post as appropriate.

Republicans trying to suppress the vote in Philly. Shocking.

John Fund is on Fox making up stories about vote fraud.

You see that election results map to the right in our feature section. Starting at 6 PM Eastern the map will start streaming live election results for the presidential, Senate and House races. You can either hover over a state or district to see the results or click on the state or district to see results down to the county level. One thing. You don't need to refresh the site to get new results from the map. It's all automatic. So do not refresh the whole site. You don't need to to get the latest results from the map.

You can test out the map now to see how it works and we also shot this video yesterday that explains how it all works.

What are you seeing, hearing, experiencing when you go to vote?

We've set up an open thread at TPM Election Central.

A TPMCafe blogger confesses that he didn't vote for Obama. His reasons are compelling.

From TPM Reader JV:

My grandmother voted today. She is 86 years old. A white woman born to hardscrabble cattle ranchers in the most desolate part of New Mexico. Our ancestry goes back through West and East Texas, through Tennessee, the Cumberland Gap, and Virginia. This side of the family rode in the Texas 2nd Cavalry during the Civil War. A dark reminder for me of my family's past, she still has receipts for slaves that our family owned. Her first husband was killed in the Battle of the Bulge, sacrificing his life like so many other young men. My mother was two months old at the time. My grandmother has voted Republican her entire life, but today she voted for Barack Obama.

Someone hacked the George Mason University email system to send an email from the provost announcing Election Day had been moved to Nov. 5.

Election Day is no longer the campaign-free zone it once was. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

My brother checks in from Virginia:

Just an update from my Alexandria voting experience. We arrived at 6am on the dot there were about 100 people in line ahead of us. We voted at exactly 7am. Lines were moving slowly but steadily with no problems. Everyone was in good spirits. Precinct workers said that our area could see 90% turnout.

A nice view from my hotel room, past Obama headquarters across the street, where the lights never turned off, to the lake. A warm glow of a sunrise on a balmy fall day. It makes me reflective.

I'm hoping, of course, that today will be a fresh start, a first step toward national renewal. But of course those first steps have already been taken by millions of people, on their own, in their own different ways, over the past four years. Today is neither the beginning nor the end, but just an important landmark along the way.

My own first steps were not heroic or graceful, a series of small stuttering steps that eventually led to big changes. I was practicing law in Missouri, more or less happily, and enjoying our two toddlers, when Hurricane Katrina hit my home state. It was wrenching to watch from afar, a maddening combination of an intimate knowledge of the people and the place, a powerlessness to help, and a growing rage over the inhumane response and the cynical indifference.

Katrina crystallized for me what I wanted for myself. Within a year I'd decided to leave the law and return to journalism, trading a stable traditional career for a chance with a small start-up, TPM.

I don't mean to put my journey up against the far more consequential and in some cases heroic efforts of so many others. The point is that for many people the effort to reshape the country, to get it back on track, to end the descent into corruption, cronyism, and a creeping anti-constitutionalism, began years ago and required real risk and sacrifice.

By comparison, voting is easy.

As those of you living in California know, early on Monday some pro Proposition 8 ads starting running on TPM. They came through Google. So we didn't know about them until we heard about them from readers. But we did allow them to continue running after we found out. Not surprisingly, we got a lot of unhappy emails asking why we were letting the ad run. I answer the question in a post I just put up at TPMCafe.

Obama takes Dixville Notch, NH. Second First Dem win since the midnight voting tradition started half a century ago.

(ed.note: Well, make that the second Dem. Apparently they voted for Hubert Humphrey in '68. We were following the CNN reporter who called in the news; but it seems he got it wrong.)

It's fitting that the McCain-Palin campaign ends with a couple of politically motivated pretend nods to transparency.

First Sarah Palin's own personnel board released a report earlier this evening clearing her in the Trooper-Gate investigation. Nice timing.

Now Palin has released a letter from her personal physician proclaiming her to be in good health and fit to serve -- instead of releasing her medical records, which she'd promised to do days ago.

They see fit to do this on the night before the election?

(As a side note, the McCain camp press release is titled "GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN RELEASES MEDICAL HISTORY SUMMARY." But it appears all they released was that letter (.pdf). Over at The Page, that morphs into the headline: "PALIN RELEASES MEDICAL RECORDS." A letter becomes a summary becomes medical records.)

Also, see our earlier TPMtv reports from Monday.

TPMtv Interviews Obama National Press Secretary Bill Burton.

TPMtv Interviews Obama National Field Director Jon Carson.

TPMtv Stops By the Phone Bank at Obama Chicago HQ.

Final Numbers ...

PA: Obama 52%, McCain 43%
FL: Obama 50%, McCain 47%

For this and the three previous election cycles we at TPM has devoted a significant amount of our election coverage resources to highlighting and investigating effort to use bogus claims of voter fraud to suppress voter turnout and put barriers in the way of legitimate voters exercising their Democratic rights. (You can see some of our recent TPMmuckraker.com coverage of the topic here.) But whatever happens tomorrow in the elections results, we may have some tentatively good news on this front.

Jonathan Kaplan, writing in the Washington Independent, reports that the Obama campaign thinks GOP voter suppression efforts are, on balance, failing. You can read in Kaplan's article the arguments between the Obama campaign and some progressive bloggers over whether that's true.

One thing to keep in mind is that campaigns almost always find themselves in a delicate balance on these issues. They want to call out bad practices and be proactive. But they also reason that too much publicity about voter suppression efforts can have a self-fulfilling result -- driving people away from the polls because they're not confident their votes will be counted or that they'll be made to jump through too many hoops. Whether that's a valid way to look at it is a more complicated matter; but it definitely is the prism through which most campaign view the issue.

But our own reporting has shown that in almost every case judges have shot down the GOP suppression gambits in the courts. Again and again, the courts have just shut them down.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be pollyannish. This is an issue where even if the glass if 95% full -- it's not nearly enough. It's all about the 5% empty. But there's some room for optimism, especially on how rough a time the vote suppression crew has had in the courts this cycle.

The campaigning is now for all practical purposes done. The only thing left to do is complete the final stage of each campaign's get out the vote operations. So this afternoon we stopped by the central phone bank that the Obama campaign in Illinois (not the national campaign) is running here in Chicago, using volunteers to reach out to voters in swing states.

The place was a bit of a zoo, with lots of volunteers showing up to help, but it was a controlled chaos. It took me a minute to realize why all these people were sitting on the floor in the building's lobby, but it turned out to be overflow from the phone bank operation in the basement. Not enough tables and chairs, so volunteers would just plop down on the floor with a cell phone and a call list and start dialing.

Here's our report:

As I mentioned earlier, we have our TPMtv crew (Managing Editor David Kurtz and Video Editor Ben Craw) on location in Chicago today and tomorrow. And they'll be bringing you regular video updates and interviews through Wednesday morning. This afternoon, David interviewed Obama spokesman Bill Burton, who you'll likely recognize from numerous TV appearances and press statements and another guy you might not recognize, Jon Carson, the Obama campaign's National Field Director. We've all heard about the big ground gain Obama's got in store. Well, the Field Director is the person in charge of all that.

You can see both interviews in this post at the TPMtv website.

Obama 51.9%, McCain 44.3%.

I know there's a lot of talk in Republican circles that Sarah Palin is going to be the star, the new face of the GOP in the post-Bush, post-McCain era. And this speculation has been goosed by Palin's own hints that it's full speed ahead with Palinism on the national stage if she and McCain fall short on Tuesday. But for me the whole idea has never really added up. I'm certainly not the target audience. But my own sense is that Palin's appeal is uniquely and paradoxically tied to the dynamics of this particular election -- an election in which Republicans are expecting, rightly or wrongly, to be beaten decisively and the most aggrieved are uniquely drawn to Palin's bright eyed and unapologetic appeal to resentment and victimology.

As I think Noam Scheiber said a week or two ago, Palin is the first Republican presidential or vice-presidential since Richard Nixon to so genuinely appeal to the politics of resentment. Sure, the Bushes and McCain have played to it. But either economically or socially or both, these men were all to-the-manor-born -- elites who've lived their whole lives on greased rails.

To use a different analogy I think Palin (and perhaps Joe the Plumber too) appeal to the brainstem of conservatism, where the most primitive and persistent impulses are registered, even as the areas of higher reasoning and cognition (frontal lobes and all that) are flat-lining or tracking into oblivion.

Even a week or so back a poll of Republicans found that Palin came in third behind Romney and Huckabee in their choice for a 2012 nominee.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that only the conservative 'intellectuals' have a beef with Palin. But I'm pretty sure the post-election view is going to seem very different. The chatter out of the McCain campaign only confirms what her two months on the public stage has made painfully clear. Palin wasn't simply unprepared for intense scrutiny of a national campaign. The woman is an ignoramus of almost unprecedented magnitude in the annals of national politics. It's not just that virtually every-non-Republican has a negative view of her. I just don't see a national party getting behind someone like that. And before you snark, "What about George Bush?" Sorry but there's no comparison. Whatever else I think of him, he's not a moron. And while he appears to be astoundingly incurious, there's simply no comparison to Palin.

I guess I could imagine a rump Republican party nominating Palin. It could be Palin with perhaps Mark Levin as veep to nail down the all important angry, middle-aged DC Jewish male, right-wing ravanchist vote and Joe the Plumber to run her Phalangist paramilitary. But my strong hunch is that if McCain loses tomorrow that will be the end of Sarah Palin's national political career even if there are some persistent twitches and jerks over the coming months.

We got a chance to go over the map, figuratively, with Jon Carson, the national field director for the Obama campaign. The focus? Pennsylvania.

TPM's David Kurtz talks to Obama spokesman Bill Burton early this afternoon for the campaign's final read on the state of the race ...

We just got finished shooting a couple of interviews at Obama's national campaign headquarters. We'll have the video of those for you shortly.

A national campaign office is a strange place the day before an election. It looks a bit like a frat house the morning after a kegger, but without the smell. Empty pizza boxes. Leftover food. Posters touting the home team (Obama) and each desk festooned with its own mementos of the campaign and signs of little inside jokes developed over the course of months of an intense shared experience.

A good chunk of the national staff and volunteers have been dispatched to the states for the final few days of the campaign. So some sections of the office, which is spread across the 11th floor of a Michigan Avenue office tower, are empty. A lone member of the policy staff sat in her cubicle amongst scattered empty chairs and abandoned desks.

Most of those who are left are seriously sleep-deprived. You can tell from the thousand-yard stare, and they move very deliberately, as if hungover.

I expected a louder environment, a final frenzy. But whatever yelling and screaming the final hours are provoking are directed into emails and text messages. A busy office is dozens of 20-somethings focused and hunched over laptops.

For many, their work here is done. The press office's rapid response operation is winding down. As Bill Burton, the campaign press secretary told me, the McCain-Palin rhetoric is now fixed in the public mind, to whatever degree it was successful. There's not much left to rebut or counter. It's now up to the voters.

Videos in the two posts immediately above this one.

Palin: Dems think "terrorists" are the "good guys." She phrases it as a question. But pretty much straight out.

Romney refuses to say McCain ran a "dignified" campaign.

The final SurveyUSA poll of Missouri. Dead even: Obama 48%, McCain 48%.

Late Update: Final SUSA Ohio: Obama 48%, McCain 46%. From the poll release: "In Ohio, Early Voters May Give Obama Enough Running Head Start That McCain Can't Catch Him on Election Day: Barack Obama 48%, John McCain 46%, in SurveyUSA's final tracking poll released Election Eve. Obama leads 5:3 among those who have already voted. McCain leads 5:4 among those who have not yet voted. Obama led in the past 3 SurveyUSA tracking polls, but by tapering margins. Obama led by 5 on 10/14/08, by 4 on 10/28/08 and by 2 today. It is possible that McCain could overtake Obama in the final 24 hours, but that would require young voters to stay home on Election Day and white voters from Dayton, Cincinnati and along the West Virginia border to show up in larger numbers than they have so far indicated."

Still more sludge from the Republican Jewish Coalition -- the folks who've been putting out mailers saying that an Obama election could be like Hitler coming to power in Germany. Now they're out in Ohio with this new mailer.

We are , as they say, down to the wire. If history is any guide, we should see more polls released today than any other day this year or perhaps in the last four years. The value of polls at this point -- other than to feed your obsession -- may be questionable. But whatever their value we've got them all; and we're posting them in real time.

The best way to see what's been released today is to look at our interactive map which we've now moved from our front page to the TPM Poll Tracker page. If you want to keep looking through the day you can also look at the TPM Poll Tracker page, where the polls are also listed beneath the map in order as they're entered.

Late Update: One more point on polls. We've put a great deal of effort into making TPM the place for polls. And I think we can say that when it comes to reporting new polling data, TPM is as fast and in most cases faster than anywhere else on the web. But I would remiss if I didn't say that when I'm looking for expert analysis of the polls themselves I go to pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com.

All presidential candidates now sport the Ahmadinejad Look.

The last rounds of polling in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are in from Public Policy Polling and Quinnipiac: Obama ahead in all three states. The numbers and the rest of the day's political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

We've just gotten a flurry of emails letting us know that GOP Trust PAC's Rev. Wright attack ad just ran on NBC on Sunday Night Football. From the range of states people are reporting seeing it, it seems clearly to have been a national buy.

We already knew this was going to be a big national buy. But this showing seemed to get a lot of people's attention.

It's been a long time since we put out this kind of information. But with all the buzz about how much interest there is in this election and the interest in new media, I thought people might be interested in in the amount of traffic TPM had in October.

Absolute Unique Visitors: 3.12 million
Visits: 15.29 million
Page Views: 30.99 million.

Obama 53%, McCain 42%.

Same polling organization as the Gallup daily tracking poll. And I think the same methodology. But I believe these non-tracking polls sponsored by USAToday are an entirely distinct sample from the ones that make up their daily track.

Late Update: CBS also has another poll out tonight: Obama 54%, McCain 41%. That's the same spread as the one they released yesterday.

When he was just the topic du jour because of his question to Barack Obama back in the neighborhood in Ohio, that was one thing. But "Joe the Plumber" is now actively campaigning with and for John McCain, appearing on stage with him at multiple events, etc. He has become a part of McCain's campaign, like any other surrogate.

So here "Joe" is on TV just about an hour ago saying that people shouldn't vote for Obama because he doubts Obama's "loyalty to America".

I guess saying Obama reminded him of Sammy Davis, Jr. wasn't bad enough. But isn't it time someone ask McCain whether he's really willing to associate with this extremist?

We've been closing monitoring the new charges alleging that a wealthy campaign contributor (who's also subsidized Coleman's wardrobe) funneled Coleman $75,000 through his wife. The charges are contained in two lawsuits filed last week, one in Texas and one in Delaware. And though they contain sworn statements from the accusers they're really just allegations. But one thing that has struck me as I've looked more deeply into the reporting is that the principals in the case -- the alleged briber (Coleman supporter Nasser Kazeminy), the alleged cut-out (Jim Hays) and Coleman himself -- really haven't responded in any great detail to deny the charges.

Coleman has denied it, but only at the most general level. More surprising, Kazeminy has refused all comment. And Hays, whose company the money was allegedly funneled through, has declined to respond himself, and had both his lawyer and his company issue vague and cryptic statements saying that whatever was done was legitimate.

These are extremely serious charges; they amount to bribes to a sitting United States senator. If there were nothing to it, I'd expect some clearer denials and clearer explanations of the payments in question.

Zack Roth has the details.

NBC's Chris Jansing on how Obama has to fight the stereotype that he will tax the middle class and give the money to those who either "don't work" or "don't deserve it" since he's the first African-American presidential nominee ...

On CNN this morning, Arlen Specter pretty clearly suggested that the Bradley Effect might be the key to victory for McCain in Pennsylvania. Wolf Blitzer then pressed him on the point and he drew back. Take a look ...

On Face the Nation, Sen. Lindsey Graham just said "we've seen a tightening of the race [and] I really believe Obama is the virtual incumbent and if he's not at 50 percent in North Carolina he's not going to win."

I'm open to the idea -- actually I believe that undecideds will break disproportionately for McCain. I would say it's become conventional wisdom, though I have yet to see any solid evidence, as opposed to informed speculation, for why that should be the case. I would say I believe it as a matter of caution as much as anything.

But in an election in which 1) the incumbent Republican president is running under 30% approval and 2) most voters believe McCain would be a continuation of the Bush presidency, to say that Obama is the "virtual incumbent" is a bit of a stretch.

AP's write up on McCain's SNL ...

McCain, who is trailing Democrat Barack Obama in most battleground state polls, also appeared during the show's "Weekend Update" newscast to announce he would pursue a new campaign strategy in the closing days of the campaign.

"I thought I might try a strategy called the reverse maverick. That's where I'd do whatever anybody tells me," McCain said.

And if that didn't work, "I'd go to the double maverick. I'd just go totally berserk and freak everybody out," the Arizona senator quipped.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

SurveyUSA shows McCain cutting Obama's lead from 12 points to 7 points in Pennsylvania over the last 10 days.

Late Update: Joe Biden is headed to Pennsylvania Monday, the only state Kerry carried in 2004 that either Democratic candidate is scheduled to set foot in over the next 48 hours.

New polls from Ohio and Virginia in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Frank Luntz: "I cannot foresee a scenario that John McCain is elected the President of the United States."

(ed.note: You can find the quote in this BBC interview at approximately 3:24, courtesy of TPM Reader AG.)