Misc.

* The claim that 'independent researcher' Dr. John Casson has discovered six new plays by William Shakespeare (alias Sir Henry Neville alias Christopher Marlowe alias "Tony Nuts" alias Queen Elizabeth alias Harvey the Rabbit) is all over the place today—but my proof that Shakespeare/Newfield is a time-traveling Lizard Person born 3000 A.D. remains completely ignored by the fools in the MSM.

* (South) Indian Superman. I love this video.

* Gynomite! has sitcom maps of New York City and the U.S. There's more from Dan Meth, who started it all off with the trilogy meter from not that long ago.

* WSJ.com has the latest bracketological research into the science of upsets. See also: Nate Silver crunches the numbers on Obama's shameless bias towards universities in swing states.

* Scenes from the recession, at the Big Picture.

* And a short piece at BBC News considers the science in science fiction. Of the four, Paul Cornell's gesture towards satire seems by far richest to me, especially with regard to its Darko Suvinian disdain for fantasy:

The mundane movement is challenging writers to drop ideas that once promised to be scientific ones, but are now considered as fantasy - faster than light travel, telepathy etc - and to concentrate on the problems of the human race being confined to an Earth it is using up.

But this is as much an artistic movement as an ethical one. The existence of such a movement, though, suggests that science fiction feels a sense of mission.

Unlike its cousin, fantasy, it wants to be talking about the real world in ways other than metaphorical.

One of the problems is that where once there was a consensus view, broadly, of what the future was going to be like - bases on the Moon, robots etc - post-Cold War chaos leaves everyone thrashing around, having to invent the future anew.

Artificial intelligence, aliens and easy space travel just haven't shown up. They may never do so.

It's an exciting moment, but the genre needs to be strong to survive it, and see off fantasy's vast land grabs of the territory of the stranded human heart.

UPDATE: Paul responds in the comments to this notion of disdain:

Just to be clear: I love fantasy as much as SF, but we asked to talk about some of the current issues facing, specifically, SF. I think fantasy's done really well lately, and that SF has to respond to match it. No anti-fantasy thing going on there with me at all.

Springboarding off a recent poll showing an incredible 100% of Pennsylvania voters supporting Obama, philly.com claims that Philly turnout is "big. Real big."

Predictions. Who's got them? Leave 'em in the comments.

I was on Poli-Sci-Fi Radio yesterday (podcast forthcoming) and they cajoled us all into making predictions. Unexpectedly, I was among the most optimistic people on the show, expecting Obama to cross 360 electoral votes and over 50% in the popular vote. I stand by this. To the extent that the polls are wrong, I (honestly) believe they will be wrong in our favor, underreporting Obama's depth of support and his GOTV operation and underestimating the level of Republican demoralization and widespread discomfort, in different registers, with Bush, Palin, and McCain all.

I've been predicting / hoping for a Reaganesque landslide since January—it was one of the biggest early factors in my decision to support Obama in the primaries in the first place—and I think that outcome is finally at hand. If things go the way I think / hope they will tomorrow, 2008 will come to be seen as a realignment election along the lines of 1980 or 1932.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I've been very wrong before—but that's my prediction.

So let's have two numbers, the EV spread and the popular vote spread. (Use 270towin to calculate the electoral votes.)

I'll go first with what will surely be way-too-high estimates of 397 EVs and eight points in the popular vote, 52%-44%. In my heart of hearts, I think we'll run the table, including taking Omaha.



But of course I'll be just as happy scrapping by with 269...

For those who are impressed by Intrade's electoral accuracy in 2004—and I'm not especially—their front-page map looks pretty nice.

Talking Points Memo has your state-by-state guide to GOP voter suppression.

Despite my busy schedule, it's been a bit of a slow news day anyway.

* The ATF busted up a mostly aspirational skinhead plot to kill Barack Obama, which included a much more logistically likely subplot to attack a predominantly African-American high school in Tennessee.

* Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has been found guilty on all counts.

* Another day, another bogus Republican vote suppression list thrown out. Today it's Georgia.

* Chuck Todd just told me on the TV that 1/2 the total 2004 turnout in North Carolina has already voted this year.

* The Field notes that Obama has cleared the 50% threshold in states totaling 286 electoral votes.

* And today's moronic right-wing lie: deliberately misquoting an eight-year-old radio interview to give the impression that Comrade Obama supports court-ordered wealth redistribution. (He doesn't. In fact, echoing the right's own talking points, what he actually says in the interview is that sort of social change should not be pursued in the courts.) On this Ambinder makes an interesting point: Republicans have managed to take an election that was clearly a referendum on Bush and turned it into a referendum on the last thirty years of their failed politics. Quite an accomplishment.

Sunday politics.

* Conservative stalwart David Frum throws in the towel on John McCain.

In these last days before the vote, Republicans need to face some strategic realities. Our resources are limited, and our message is failing. We cannot fight on all fronts. We are cannibalizing races that we must win and probably can win in order to help a national campaign that is almost certainly lost. In these final 10 days, our goal should be: senators first.

* Kos wonders who, if anyone, will be the Howard Dean of the right.

* The Field posits that Chicago is the ideal location from which to launch a presidential campaign.

Surrounding Senator Obama's state of Illinois and its 21 Electoral Votes are three states won by George W. Bush four years ago: Indiana and Missouri (each with 11 EVs), and Iowa (7 EVs). The McCain-Palin ticket has made multiple visits to those and other surrounding states that it claimed would be in play: Michigan (17), Wisconsin (10) and Minnesota (10), where the Republicans held their national convention last month.

Chicago may just be the best city in the country to base your presidential campaign - in terms of the Electoral College - if you count with a cadre of well-trained organizers and volunteers ready to travel a short ways to register voters, knock on doors and help get out the vote in the neighboring swing states: Add 39 contiguous Electoral Votes in play and another 27 in battleground states close enough for day trips, and the region holds a whopping electoral prize of 87 EVs. That's more than the 73 on the West Coast or the 74 in Greater NY (with PA, NJ and CT).

* And Sir Charles of Cogitamus alongside the New York Times's "Week in Review" explores the "disastrous demographic bets" the Republican Party has made, bringing us to the point where even an eventual Whig-like implosion does not seem outside the realm of possibility...

How McCain can still win: Nate Silver plays troubleshooter. More at his home site.

The Electoral College map is starting to look a lot like my obscene fantasy blowout, with OpenLeft's most recent presidential forecast looking exactly like it. Obama—perhaps capitalizing on my hoped-for Ron Paul effect—has now taken a four-point lead in Montana, and CNN/Time polls from other swing states continue to look bad from Johnny Mc.

As reported and then strenuously denied earlier in the week, he's now shifting advertising to Bush states, signaling he's trying to play defense and possibly just avoid a blowout. Colorado in particular seems to have been abandoned. Pennsylvania remains McCain's Last Stand, and I remain unconvinced he really has any sort of shot there.

More importantly the circular firing squad in the GOP has begun in earnest, most notably symbolized an NRSC Liddy Dole ad put out today that takes as its premise a McCain loss. Republicans are scrambling to be heirs to the throne: witness JoinRudy2012 and Marc Ambinder's argument that Sarah Palin is positioning herself to be next in line in 2012.

All I can say to that is "Yes, please."

Late night links.

* Honeymoon destination for the stars Iceland accepts an IMF bailout, the first industrialized nation to receive one since the U.K. in 1976 (by some accounts) or South Korea in 1997 (by others).

* 270towin.com has your poll closing schedule for election night.

* Everyone is talking about tonight's revelation that the RNC has spent over $150,000 on clothing Sarah Palin and family. Why, that's almost 400 haircuts!

* John McCain has a rough day in Pennsylvania.



* But it's not all bad news for McCain—rumors abound of a leaked Obama internal poll showing Obama up by only two points.

Pollster.com moves Virginia to Strong Obama.

Are the polls narrowing? It's hard to say: MyDD makes a strong claim that they aren't, despite eager media reports to the contrary and an RCP chart that certainly looks like it might be.

OpenLeft, for its part, looks at the electoral map and concludes that Obama has 264/270 more or less locked up whether the polls narrow or not, meaning that we should focus on CO, FL, MO, NV, NC, OH, and VA, a victory in any one of which will mean President Obama. (He's currently ahead in all seven.)

Nate Silver, whose credibility as a statistician gets another well-deserved boost today after the Tampa Bay Rays make the World Series—he was "one of the only people expecting the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to win 90 games this year"—is still predicting an Obama landslide with high certainty, and notes that Obama seems to be dominating early voting. With early voting started, we're in the home stretch now—every day that goes by with Obama in the lead is another ten thousand votes that get locked in for our side.

Can Obama win North Carolina? Yes, we can.

(photo via The Field)

Cleveland's Plain-Dealer, which endorsed Bush (!) in 2000 and chose not to endorse anyone in 2004, endorses Barack Obama.

Kerry took 67% of the vote in Cuyahoga County in 2004, hoping to win the state on the back of Cleveland's comparatively huge population; unfortunately, putting aside questions of election malfeasance and voter suppression for the moment, the margin was such that Kerry would have needed upwards of 80% of Cuyahoga's vote to offset his losses elsewhere in the state.

The battle in Ohio this year will be about turnout, not newspaper endorsements, but every bit helps.

Matt Y. gives us a taste of when we'll know Obama's won this thing.

Virginia and Indiana close at 7PM Eastern, Ohio closes at 7:30PM Eastern (the portions of Indiana in Eastern Time actually close at 6PM) and then Florida closes at 8PM Eastern with the vast majority of the state (the non-panhandle part) closing at 7PM Eastern. In practice, McCain needs to win all four of those states to have a shot at the election, and he’s currently behind in three of them. It’d still take a while before anyone concedes anything, and political junkies will want to see Senate outcomes in Alaska and Oregon, but it’s very possible that the country will basically know the outcome of the presidential election pretty early.

In the worst case scenario that McCain does manage to win all four—and North Carolina, and Missouri, and Georgia and West Virginia, and all the other states that currently look to be in play—it'll then come down to Colorado, where the polls close at 9 PM EST. If Obama wins there and in New Mexico, he still wins, even if he loses everywhere else.

RCP has a six-point Obama advantage in Colorado.

The debate begins in just a few minutes, but there's time to appreciate some good early voting news: 'Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States.'

There's also time to worry a bit about some bad early voting news: Republicans in Ohio have won a court case requiring Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to create computer programs to cross check all new voter registrations so that county boards of elections can doublecheck new registrants. Voter suppression there just got a whole lot easier.

It may not matter: no matter what McCain says or does, it looks like people are voting for Obama anyway.

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

Colorado: Obama 52%, McCain 43%

Michigan: Obama 54%, McCain 38%

Minnesota: Obama 51%, McCain 40%

Wisconsin: Obama 54%, McCain 37%

Pollster Peter Brown of Quinnipiac: "Sen. Obama's leads in these four battleground states are as large as they have been the entire campaign. Those margins may be insurmountable barring a reversal that has never been seen before in the modern era in which polling monitors public opinion throughout the campaign."

Is McCain trying to lose? What other answer can there be to the latest terrible, self-defeating spin on his abominable health care plan? He's actually talking about cutting the Medicare budget. Per Kevin Drum, here's how he got here:

1. We're going to eliminate the tax deduction of healthcare insurance and replace it with a $5,000 tax credit for families.

2. Oops, that means a lot of families will end up paying more in taxes. Can't have that. So what we're really going to do is eliminate the income tax deduction, but not the payroll tax deduction. All better now.

3. Oops again. The new plan saves middle class families from a tax increase, but by doing so it blows a huge hole in the budget. $1.3 trillion over ten years, to be exact.

4. What do do? Cut Medicare! Hooray!

Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias have more on this. The latest round of pro-Obama swing state polls don't even take this into effect yet, and they still show Obama leading in Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, and, yes, Florida—what will those polls look like once the slashing-Medicare issue hits the airwaves?

What is his team thinking? FiveThirtyEight is even arguing that Georgia's still in play.

John McCain is a straight-talking maverick who would never say one thing to one audience and a different thing to a different audience. Except, you know, when he does:

Yesterday during an interview with the Denver Post, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed, “I will not and have never supported renegotiating the Colorado River Compact,” an agreement that “governs how seven Western states, including Colorado and Arizona, share the Colorado River“:

MCCAIN: And by the way, whatever misinterpretation there may have been, I will not and have never supported renegotiating the Colorado River Compact. … Never, Never would I support a renegotiation of the Colorado River Compact. Please. No. Got it?

But less than a month ago, McCain did exactly that. He told the Pueblo Chieftain, that the compact “obviously, needs to be renegotiated“:

MCCAIN: I don’t think there’s any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties.

This is an under-the-radar story for most of the people in the country, but as some smart folks noticed at the time, it could make a big difference in what's emerged as a crucial swing state.

About a month ago Alex Greenberg left a comment about RealClearPolitics that looks pretty prescient. Alex said:

Does it bother anyone that the number one web resource for poll data is also clearly partisan? The left needs, among other things, to start its own poll-summary site, so that people aren't getting headlines geared to push people toward the right alongside their poll numbers.

Today comes a post at FiveThirtyEight.com demonstrating that RCP is cherry picking polls to prop up McCain's numbers:

You'll see three polls [for Virginia] -- SurveyUSA, Mason-Dixon, and ABC/Post -- that were conducted at essentially the same time. The ABC/Post poll was in the field from the 18th to the 21st, Mason-Dixon from the 17th to the 22nd, and SurveyUSA from the 19th to the 21st. And yet, the Mason-Dixon and ABC/Post polls are included in its average whereas SurveyUSA is not. Guess which one had the strongest numbers for Obama?

A similar example from Minnesota. The Star-Tribune conducted polling from September 10th through September 12th; SurveyUSA conducted polling from September 10th to September 11th. The Star-Tribune poll, which shows a tie, is included; the SurveyUSA poll, which showed Obama ahead by 2, is not.

As long as we're having fun with this, how about Alaska? Anchorage-based pollster Ivan Moore had released a poll in July, then showing just a 3-point race between McCain and Obama. We included it, Pollster.com included it, and RCP did not. But then last month, when the same firm released a fresh poll showing the profound effect that Sarah Palin had on the race (McCain +19), RCP decided they were a worthy pollster.

Or how about North Carolina Senate? RCP presently includes two weeks-old polls from SurveyUSA and Research 2000, whch had shown Elizabeth Dole with a solid lead in her race against Kay Hagan. But they didn't bother to include more recent polls from Elon and Civitas, which show the race essentially tied.