Predictions and Results

Now that Florida is in - having been won by BHO by a resounding 0.6%, and it's all over, I can have a look at my predictions.

Obama carries FLA by a slim margin.  Actual was 0.6%  Check.  Determined voters overcame suppression.  Good on them!

Wins Ohio by at least +6.   Actual 1.9%   Not even close.  Way less than the '08 margin of 5%.  I am totally baffled by this result.

BHO gets at least 303 EV; 330 looks attainable. Actual 303 with FLA hanging, 332 now that it's captured.  Nailed this one, but I can't take much credit.  All I had to do was believe the people who know what the hell they're talking about.   Note who did NOT do this.

Obama in the popular vote by +3.5%. Actual 2.5%.  Ack.  This really is distressingly close.  If demographics are going to make the Rethugs obsolete, they'd better get at it, PDQ.

Third party candidates collectively get under 1% nationwide.  Nope.  With BHO at 50.5% and  Randall Boggsomney at 48.0%, that leaves 1.5% to be distributed among the few, the hopeless, the turd party candidates.

About 100,000 deluded fanatics write in Ron Paul.  Who knows.  I don't know how to check this out, but I do feel pretty good about it in view of the 1.5% going to "other."

Sharrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren both win.   Check and Mate.  Brown by 50.3 to 45.1,  Warren by 56.7 to 46.3.  These are pretty comfortable wins, but not slam dunks.  In each case a lot of outside $$$$ were behind the Rethug. Who can say how much influence that had.  Thankfully, money did not rule the day.

There is some musical chairs in the Senate, but no net change.  Sometimes I'm happy to be wrong.  Dems pick up 2 seats.

Dems pick up 5 to 10 in the House.  Missed on this one.  Dems are currently up 2, with 6 seats still unconfirmed, but, alas, most of these are leaning R.  11/29 Update:  This just in.  Every race decided late went to the Democrats, who picked up 8 seats, right in the middle of my estimate.  How 'bout dat!

Tomorrow the recriminations begin - Republicans will claim Romney lost because he is either "not a true conservative" or "not conservative enough." Only one of these is correct.  Oh, yeah.  Check.  OK, this was too easy.  Really, could there have been any doubt?   But at this point, I'll take it.

 The lesson is not to be less conservative. The lesson is not to be found in purging social conservatives. The lesson is in taking a look at how the radicals won: Yes, there was the fear element. There was the devil-you-know element. But there is also the fact that all of what they say seems plausible and even not all that radical, because it has been in our cultural milk. Because while they may obscure some of the details and make it all sound mainstream, at the same time they are bold and confident about the extreme positions they believe in. That’s what we’ve got to be.
                                       - Kathryn Jean Lopez

I will continue to be amazed that any decent, intelligent, educated human being would vote for this lying odious unprincipled elitist chameleon.  Well, yeah, but predicting my own mental state is not really a huge challenge for me.

Most of the time.