I have to admit, Invictus, it isn't clear to me why it matters so much that it is a reelection campaign. Some sort of lame duck effect?

I'm not pretending it would be bad for the country if that occurred, Invictus...

I'm saying it's something of an exaggeration to say he'd be the weakest in modern history if that happened, especially as that'd be the second time in four elections that such a split occurred.

I disagree it'd be worse for the country than 2000 because it's a re-election campaign; on the contrary, I think it's more damaging to a leader's authority to take office with that split TO BEGIN WITH and have the majority of the nation saying "I didn't vote for you, you never should've been president to begin with!" than to have been president for four years and then have this occur, as at least you could say that you WERE president to begin with (and Obama did win, resoundingly so, in 2008.)

Off to the polls; hope I don't cock it up.

That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Not winning a majority after having won a majority four years ago means that the people have rejected you as a leader. Obama wouldn't just be in office without a mandate, he'd be in office after his mandate was repealed. That's way worse! How can you not see that?

Bush was in the office without EVER having a mandate in 00-04...

How can THAT not be worse???

Obama not getting a majority not only means he has no mandate, but it represents a rejection of the policies of his first term. It's everything bad about the situation of Bush's first term, but in addition to that there's the element that Obama would remain in office after his record was spurned. That's worse since there's that extra thing on top of the lack of a popular majority. You really can't see that?

@obi - Nobody gives a fuck what the populace says about the PResident. The fact is, Obama is already facing an uphill battle with an unfriendly Congress. So if he doesn't have both on his side, he is likely to have a *Congress* that will make his life miserable and nothing will get done. Especially as, if the popular vote goes Romney, then Congress isn't likely to flip to being friendly to him. But if he gets the popular vote, then the people will likely have put a friendly Congress in power as well.

Not necessarily Draugnar. Everyones favourite 538 predicts a Republican house but Obama for president.

"I can see your logic, but min wage actually saves the state a fortune when combined with in work welfare benefits. I remember well before the min wage in the UK people were paid appalling wages and then had to claim income support from the state to live. In effect the taxpayer was subsidising the companies who paid low wages. Every employer knows what the min wage is, if you can't make a profit at those rates go and do something that does make a profit without condemning workers to poverty wages or expecting the state the subsidise your enterprise."
Why not just welfare benefits? Nobody is going to work below welfare benefits so it creates an artificial minimum wage but still allows the laws of supply and demand to create the minimum wage in equilibrium.

538 is garbage

may I ask why?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/331192/nate-silver-s-flawed-model-josh-jordan

sums it up pretty precisely. Silver's weighting is really arbitrary at best and egregiously partisan at worst. Guy completely flopped on the 2010 midterm elections and is famous for calling a lot of states in a pretty easy to call election. Ooooh aaaah.

I wouldn't care as much, but it really frustrates me seeing all the lefties on my Facebook fucking worshiping this dude. Anyone who's forecasting >90% chance of an Obama victory right now can pretty much be written off completely.

Well, moving from the Federal to State level...

Anyone voting on any interesting state props or measures?

Props 30, 32, and 37 are getting a lot of Press here in California, and, hey! a subject we LOVE to talk about here, gay marriage...

3 states--Maine, Washington, and Maryland--all voting on it, and 1 state--Minnesota--voting on whether to ban it or not...

So shouting "bias!" makes it all better, right? If one biased media outlet calls another biased, does it really matter?

Voting on Medical Marijuana and End of Life in Mass.

As to Nate Silver:

I really dislike all this "90% chance of victory" and "Who Ya Got?" talk.

It's an election, not picking the Super Bowl winner.

"So shouting "bias!" makes it all better, right? If one biased media outlet calls another biased, does it really matter?"

If you're referring to the article I cited, it explains the accusation of bias in what strikes me as a reasonable manner. And sure, everyone's biased - but the problem (at least for me) is that Silver's pretty much heralded as the second coming of Jesus by most of the left-wingers (all of them?) I know, when I think it's pretty clear he's not really any better than most other prognostications.

"Guy completely flopped on the 2010 midterm elections"
What are you talking about, 34 of 36 senate seats and 36 of 37 governor elections he predicted correctly? That is pretty accurate. And he predicted a republican gain of 55 house seats and in the end they gained 63. Thats not bad.

ALREADY drama in Florida--

700 absentee ballots thrown out already in the battleground state, lines hours long to vote, and a woman has fainted and is receiving medical attention as she was standing in line for hours to vote. OY.

Um, Fasces, that is what I said. A congress that would make his life hell would *be* a Republican congress. Duh.

What you said that if Obama wins the popular vote, odds are congress will also go democrat. And I said no. Obama could win the popular vote and he could loose, but either way the Republicans are keeping the house.

You know, this whole Florida bullshit is just that, bullshit. The law that was passed requiring a comparison against voter regristration cards was poorly written, yes. But both Republicans and Democrats are affected by it.

The real concern to me would be the fact that early voting continued after it was supposed to be closed and only the Dems were notified it would continue. *That* is partisanship. But it is also easily correctable. You have a record of who voted absentee/early *and* you have a record of who voted at the polls. If a name appears twice, throw out the early/anbsentee vote as it is easy to do (they aren't anonymous). Then you are back to one person, one vote. Easy peasy.

Ah gotcha! I thought you meant if he didn't get the popular vote (just the EC vote). My bad.

Of course, you didn't specify him getting the popular vote, just the presidency.

As I said, Romney has the popular vote, NY and NJ are going to have all time low turnouts and that will negatively effect Obama.

Based on the polling averages I would be very surprised if Obama wins, and if he does, then the election isn't as close as most of us thought.

"What are you talking about, 34 of 36 senate seats and 36 of 37 governor elections he predicted correctly? That is pretty accurate. And he predicted a republican gain of 55 house seats and in the end they gained 63. Thats not bad."

Citation needed. Only thing I could find was the House seats...

"In final vote tallys as of December 10, 2010, the Republicans had a net gain of 63 seats in the House, 8 more than the total predicted on election eve though still within the reported confidence interval." (source: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/38-days-later/ )

I saw the numbers you cited, ftr, but I saw no source for them and I certainly recall Silver doing notably worse.

(Oh, and to be clear - I think that undershooting the house seats by about 15%, though not bad, is certainly not meritorious of the messianic status he seems to get from the left.)

Thats is a pretty misleading statement. The republicans didn't win 63 districts, they won 63 districts more then in 2008.

Nate predicted 234-201 when in actuality it was 242-193. Thats not bad.

Actually, Fasces, CNN is reporting a surprisingly decent voter turnout for NY and NJ, Sandy considered...

And the governor of NY has allowed all victims of Sandy to vote at ANY polling place in ANY of the districts in the state, as obviously a great many polling places are damaged and inoperable and a great many people are displaced and it wouldn't be fair if folks couldn't have their vote count because of that.