Paralyzed

I have a tendency to procrastinate.

Please, please no need to defend me. Seriously, a write-in campaign is not only unnecessary, it is completely illogical as I, not some third party, am saying it and where exactly would you write in anyway?

It is true, I put things off. I find excuses not to do something unless a deadline looms and there really is no way I can accomplish my task unless I start immediately. And yes, I am the only person like this in the whole world. It is not human nature at all.

I bring this up because it ties into another personality quirks of mine. I have been known, on occasion, to obsess about things. Particularly things I can micro-analyze. It matters little what my personal stake in the matter is or how much I really know about the subject, I am absolutely game for breaking down the minutia of any and all available on data for any little thing that peaks my interest, whether it be the combat mechanics of the video game City of Heroes or the likely future signings of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It of course goes without saying that I rarely turn this laser-like focus on anything that might be useful to my career, like maybe finishing up a paper or two. [By-the-way, this is about to get seriously navel-gazing bad, involving political talk. As a bonus there are some babies at the end, so feel free to treat them as your reward... or just skip my blather. It really is the way to go, especially since you are probably reading this post-election.]

So along comes the 2008 Presidential Election, arguably the most exciting election in a generation, if you don't count that all too exciting post-election brou-ha-ha we had down in Florida (Al somebody-or-other... I've blocked it all out). History making candidates and inspiring speeches up the ying yang. Economy tanking and a couple of wars still brewing on the back burner, so the stakes are indeed high. I dare say the typical, cynical American has probably paid a bit more attention to this free-for-all than they have in some time (or ever?). Sure, we are all burned out by an election cycle that seemed to start sometime before the election of Zachary Taylor, but it is almost go time. The finale. Even if you no longer like the book, you want to read that last god-damned chapter.

Now what else does politics have? Polls. And 50 states. And 35 senate races with a possible (but longshot) filibuster-proof majority for the Democrats in sight. Hell, there are even a multitude of competitive Congressional races, filled with odious and idiosyncratic candidates. Boy, that is a lot of data. One could spend hours pouring over those tea leaves, trying to predict the future. Now several months ago this was ok. At worst there was a poll a day and only a mild urgency to go along with it.

The past week, however, has been some sort of Greek-Hades inspired torment, or perhaps just a dubious gift from that cursed Monkey-paw. Beware getting what you wish for. There are now something like 30+ polls a day, ranging from national to state to senate to congressional. This means one can literally spend 30 minutes pouring over the data from one poll, read some commentary on that data, and then click refresh for the latest poll. With 30+ polls there is a mathematical certainty that some will be significant outliers, causing mini-bursts of ridiculous optimism followed (30 minutes later) by gut-churning panic.

Yes. It is ridiculous. It is like checking your stocks every couple of hours. Meaningless and it will make you pull your hair out. A wise man would shut down his browser and retire to a room for contemplation. But there is only about 24 hours left anyway.

Might as well feed the beast a final meal.

So here are my predictions, for the whole world (5-10 people who read this blog) to see:^

Obama 367
McCain 171

I give Obama the Gore states+NH (or Kerry states+IA+NM, if you prefer). Don't waste a micro-second worrying about PA, that was a McCain Hail Mary and there is no one even in the end zone.

Obama will easily win CO+VA+NV. He will squeak out wins in OH+FL. MO+NC+MT are toss-ups that will come down to very tight get-out-the-vote efforts, where Obama will crush McCain. MT is my biggest gamble, as the polling there is sparse. MT has a Democratic governor who is going to be re-elected big time which I think tilts it to Obama.

Indiana and North Dakota would be prime candidates for giving McCain indigestion if the map didn't indicate they were going to be the least of his problems. However, as toss-ups with not much else going on (besides anti-Repub mood) I got to think they will come home for McCain.
Other close ones will be Georgia, where the African American vote looks to be surging, and his home state of Arizona, where the latinos are turning against McCain. I think he wins both in the end, but man would losing AZ be embarassing.

My pick for surprise state would be South Carolina. I don't believe it likely, but it is being very poorly polled and lies right between NC and GA, who are breaking hard for Obama. If African Americans come out like gang busters it might surprise an otherwise sleepy electorate. However, SC just does not have the cosmopolitan big cities of its otherwise demographically similar neighbors, so I don't see it happening.

Senate:

+8 for the Democrats.
They get VA,NM,CO,NH,AK,NC,OR + MN.

The first 5 are virtual locks at this point, thank you convicted felow AK Senator Stevens (R). I would be very surprised at this point to see either NC (Hagan) or OR (Merkley) go Republican, with the Obama coattails in effect. MN will be a nail biter. I think Coleman (the Republican) is a fraction of a percentage point ahead of the Democrat (Al Franken), but Obama is going to have massive coattails in Minnesota and a superior GOTV, so I think Franken just pulls it out.

This give the Democrats 59 seats, if you include the left-leaning Independents. Sanders of Vermont is a safe bet, but Lieberman could be prickly, as there is a movement to take away some of his power, having campaigned actively for McCain and all that.

The remaining contested seats are:
GA, which might be the most interesting state of the night. Will the new, black voters all come out to play? Chambliss (R) holds about a 3-4pt lead over Martin (D). I think the new voters chip a couple points off that, but not enough to win it out right. They MIGHT push Chambliss under 50%, though, which would force a run-off of mega-proportions (Repub filibusters on the line).
KY, where I think McConnell holds off the challenger (Lunsford). The last of the poll average gives him something like a 3-4 point lead. Obama will not do that well in this state and does not have anywhere near the GOTV machinery in place that he has in NC, for example. The polling is sparse here and McConnell appears to be flirting with the 50% mark, so this is the race to check for a tsunami of Democrats.
MS, the Repub (Wicker) has about a 5pt lead over the Dem (Musgrave). Again, a very Republican state that has just not gotten anywhere near the resources of Georgia. Still, it has a very high African American population, so even a failed Obama-surge (and it will fail) might make it interesting.

Surprise state: Texas. Rick Noriega (D) is a strong candidate facing a weak incumbant, Cornyn (R). Texas is an expensive state, however, and the Bush/Repub-mojo is still strong here. There have been very few polls, however, and they have been a bit erratic: 6-7 point race one week, 15 point the next, and then a final poll with massive undecideds. If there has been any late movement and the latino/black vote really turns out it might surprise. It won't, but if it gets close it would be a good start for de-nutballing what should otherwise be a more Democratic state.

Congress:

260 Dem
175 Rep

Or a gain of 23 Seats. I have not endlessly analyzed this one (even I have only so much time to waste), so I have relied on what I have read elsewhere. Basically the Democrats are going to gain 15 seats and lose 1 and participate in about 19 tossups, almost all for Republican held seats. I more or less split the toss-ups in half and assumed one surprise seat for Dems to get there. If this is truly another wave election, I think the Dems could gain as many as 10 more seats.

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All right. Enough of that. Here are the babies:



These shots are quite ancient at this point, coming from our trip in January to Austin, Texas. They are barely the same people. It just goes to show how ridiculously out of date my babies pictures have gotten. In these pictures they are still babies. Today, they are toddlers. Crazy. I apologize if the pictures are slightly blurred. Those babies were flopping around like seal lions on crack cocaine.



We took these baby in bean bag pictures in front of the Google room set-up at the American Astronomical Society meeting I was attending (my reason for being in Austin). Leave to Google to provide comfy bean bag chairs for people to just, you know, chill in if the conference had just become, like, too much you know? I guess what I am saying is that if you want to project a serious, business-like attitude, bean bags don't do it. Google, of course, wants anything but that.



So there, Amy. Babies in Beanbags As requested a million years ago.

Enjoy.

^I reserve the right to delete the whole thing if something disastrous and unexpected happens tomorrow. No need to pour that much salt in my own wounds.