” I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan. I think that these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq who told me that. I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And so — and I believe that information according to the FBI and others could have been gained through other methods.”
- John McCain on Face The Nation today

Yes folks, torture became a recruitment tool. And it’s apparently yet another reason we got bogged down in Iraq. Again, from McCain…

“Senator Lindsey Graham and I were in Camp Bucca, where there’s the 20,000-prisoner camp. We met with a former high- ranking member of al Qaeda. I said, how did you succeed so well in Iraq after the initial invasions? He said two things. One, the chaos that existed after the initial invasion, there was no order of any kind. Two, he said Abu Ghraib pictures allowed me and helped me to recruit thousands of young men to our cause. Now that’s al Qaeda.”

Does this surprise anybody?

The question now…will we learn?

I should come as no surprise that many Democrats pray for Sarah Palin to be the candidate in 2012, but many smart GOPers realize how much damage she could do to the brand.

That’s why we’re seeing pieces like this latest rather lengthy Vanity Fair exposé.

Read the rest over at True/Slant.

One moderate Republican apparently wasn’t enough.

From CNN:

Conservative host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday he isn’t sorry to see Arlen Specter leave the GOP — and that many Republicans wish the Pennsylvania senator would take a few others with him when he goes.

“A lot of people say, ‘Well, Specter, take [Sen. John] McCain with you. And his daughter [Meghan]. Take McCain and his daughter with you if you’re gonna…” he told listeners, dissolving in laughter.

“…..It’s ultimately good. You’re weeding out people who aren’t really Republicans,” he said.

Well, I’m sure Olympia Snowe is on his list now too.

Nevermind that moderate Republicans represent true Republican ideals instead of the far right strain that Limbaugh subscribes to and has pushed the past 30 years.

Good times.

I do feel bad for the guy, but with the internet providing the means for anybody to easily donate to a campaign, the game changed and McCain’s public finance laws couldn’t change with it.

From Wash Times:

“No Republican in his or her right mind is going to agree to public financing. I mean, that’s dead. That is over. The last candidate for president of the United States from a major party that will take public financing was me,” the Arizona Republican told The Washington Times. [...]

Mr. McCain said last year’s election has forever changed the way presidential elections are run. He said Mr. Obama carried traditional red states such as North Carolina by outspending him, and specified that in battleground Florida, the Democrat outspent him on television and radio advertising by $28 million. [...]

Mr. McCain raised his own money for the primary season but accepted public financing for the general election, constraining himself to about $84 million for the campaign’s last two months. Mr. Obama, by contrast, stayed outside the public system for the primary and general elections, raising a total of $779 million, including $150 million in September.

Still, McCain rightly points out that Obama’s team raised a lot of money from big donors too, but all those donations were within the limits of campaign finance law. So I’m not sure why he even brings it up…

“There’s just an ability to raise so much more money now, and they did it very, very effectively,” he said. “They were able to raise incredible amounts of money. But don’t think it was all small donors; they raised the same percentage of big donors versus small donors as we did, they just did a hell of a lot more of it.”

I don’t have the number here in front of me, but Obama probably raised more money from small donors than McCain raised in total. So to complain about big donors is a case of sour grapes, otherwise…why even bring up the money raised by big donors, when “big” has a cap placed on it?

Moving on…

Under this method, candidates get one Electoral Vote for each Congressional District that they win in a particular state and the candidate who receives the most votes state-wide gets two more Electoral Votes. That’s the system that has been in use in Maine and Nebraska for many years now and it received some attention last year when Barack Obama managed to win one of Nebraska’s Electoral Votes by winning in one Congressional District.

Now, Congressional Quarterly is out with a study that shows what would have happened if every state allocated their Electoral Votes in this manner:

What if the 2008 presidential election had been re-run using a district-based system of awarding electoral votes — used only in two states — instead of the winner-take-all method that every other state uses?

The answer is that Barack Obama still would have beaten John McCain , though the Electoral College tally would have been closer than the actual 365-173 margin of victory.

According to a CQ Politics analysis, Obama would have beaten McCain 301-237 using a district-based system, under which a candidate receives two electoral votes for winning a state and one electoral vote for every congressional district he or she wins. Only Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes in this fashion.

The analysis found that Obama won 242 districts and McCain won 193 districts. Obama also posted another 59 electoral votes by carrying 28 states and the District of Columbia, which is entitled to three electoral votes under the 23rd Amendment. McCain would have received another 44 electoral votes as a result of winning 22 states.

Not a major change in the outcome, of course, thanks to Obama’s lead in the popular vote, but it’s one that more accurately reflects how the election turned out nationwide.

And what if we’d done it in 2000 ?

Well here’s how I think it would’ve turned out:

1. Bush won 228 Congressional District, while Al Gore won 207 (Source here), so we start out at Bush 228 Gore 207.
2. Bush also won 30 states (if you include Florida) to Gore’s 20 + D.C., (Source here)which would give Bush an additional 60 Electoral Votes to Gore’s additional 43.

Thus, that would have given Bush a total of 288 Electoral Votes to Gore’s 250. And, if you did give Florida to Gore, assuming no shift in the district allocation, the total would have been Bush 286 Gore 252. There would have been no hanging chads, no Constitutional crisis, no Bush v. Gore.

Sounds like another reason we should consider adopting this nationwide.

And while there seem to be no details about what he actually wants in the plan, there is one very important thing he doesn’t.

From HuffPost:

Sen. John McCain is putting together a major economic plan that will be structured, in some ways, off of Newt Gingrich’s famous Contract With America.

In an email obtained by the Huffington Post, the Arizona Republican’s chief of staff, Marc Buse, asked an outside adviser for help with a “ten principles” program that the senator could use as a “definitive” platform.

“We are looking for some guidance on a definitive plan (aka contract with america style) on the economy…principles,” writes Buse. “Ten principles that JSM could point to on what MUST BE DONE to address the problems our nation faces.”

Buse doesn’t offer specific suggestions of his own, save “NO TAX INCREASES.”

If the e-mail is true, it demonstrates a bit of shallowness. Because coming up with a “ten point” plan is a gimmick, nothing less. Who cares if there are 5 points or 7 points or 11 points?

But hey, I could be wrong. They could find ten points that make a hell of a lot of sense.

For instance, I’m sure many of you will be happy that no tax increases will be included in that, even though making the wealthy pay just a bit more shouldn’t be seen as too much to ask in this time of crisis. Especially when they’re enjoying the largest income inequality since, well, right before the Great Depression. After all, what have they been asked to sacrifice in the past 9 years except donate money to the Republican party so they could get their capital gains taxes decreased 5% and their dividend income capped at 15%?

For some perspective on those cuts, I give you this from 2003…

The 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their share just eight years earlier, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. But their tax burden plummeted over the period.

The data, in a report that the I.R.S. released last night, shows that the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was almost $174 million in 2000. That was nearly quadruple the $46.8 million average in 1992. The minimum income to qualify for the list was $86.8 million in 2000, more than triple the minimum income of $24.4 million of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers in 1992.

While the sharp growth in incomes over that period coincided with the stock market bubble, other factors appear to account for much of the increase. A cut in capital gains tax rates in 1997 to 20 percent from 28 percent encouraged long-term holders of assets, like privately owned businesses, to sell them, and big increases in executive compensation thrust corporate chiefs into the ranks of the nation’s aristocracy.

This year’s tax cut reduced the capital gains rate further, to 15 percent.

No tax increases? When we all know that the wealthy draw their main source of income from investments that they only have to pay 15% on?

Good times.

And so it begins…

“Close them down, get them out of business. If they’re dead, they ought to be buried,” Sen. Richard Shelby, the Ranking Republican on the banking committee, told ABC’s This Week. “We bury the small banks — we’ve got to bury some big ones, and send a strong message to the market.” He did not mention any banks by name, although he responded to a question about Citigroup by noting that “Citi’s always been a problem child.”

Former GOP presidential candidate John McCain told Fox News Sunday that he did not think President Obama “made the hard decision, and that is to let these banks fail.” He did not call for nationalization of troubled financial institutions, which many Republicans oppose, but said their assets should be sold. “Unfortunately, the shareholders and others will take a beating,” he said.

Can you imagine if Citigroup went under? Does anybody understand the ripple effect that would have on the world markets and lending in general? It would cripple confidence.

Look for “Let them fail! Let them fail!” to become the rallying cry on the right very soon…if it isn’t already.

And, in other news, Fox News is already suggesting that Obama’s presidency is a failure.

Good times.

In 2008, both major presidential candidates promised to curtail earmarks. The only one who has yet to blink on the issue lost his fight today to reign in the excesses of the new spending bill.

John McCain just can’t win.

The story:

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to preserve thousands of earmarks in a $410 billion spending bill on Tuesday, brushing aside Sen. John McCain’s claim that President Barack Obama and Congress are merely conducting business as usual in a time of economic hardship.

McCain’s attempt to strip out an estimated 8,500 earmarks failed on a vote of 63-32. The Arizona senator’s proposal also would have cut roughly $32 billion from the measure and kept spending at last year’s levels in several federal agencies.

Last year’s Republican presidential candidate said both he and Obama pledged during the campaign to “stop business as usual in Washington,” and he quoted the president as having said he would go line by line to make sure money was spent wisely.

McCain has a distinguished career battling earmarks and I’m glad he’s still fighting the good fight. I’ll hold off calling Obama an earmark hypocrite until after he’s had more time to impose his will. He did keep earmarks out of the stimulus bill (although he hardly reigned in the excess). Hopefully the continued anti-earmark actions by McCain and others will push Obama into keeping his promise on future spending bills.

We’ll see…

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), President Obama’s campaign opponent, went to the White House Thursday for a briefing on the president’s plan for a timetable for a troop drawdown in Iraq. Before heading down Pennsylvania Avenue, he said he was already largely on board.

McCain said he would not be advising the White House as to what he thought was the best plan, but rather hearing them out.

“They’re going to present us their recommendations. It’s their plan,” he said. “From what I know about it, I agree with it.”

For McCain, the plan has virtue because it is backed by the generals and the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. “I like it best because it’s what Ambassador Crocker and General [Raymond] Odierno and General [David] Petraeus also felt was a suitable strategy,” said McCain.

Nancy Pelosi disagrees — which bring us to comments made here by Jitter and others… does it seem that Nancy Pelosi (and Harry Reid, et al.) tries to politically ‘cock-block’ what the Obama administration is trying to do?

Sure Nancy, there may be a larger-than-you-would-like residual force left in Iraq (Obama says approximately 50,000 troops, Pelosi wants closer to 15,000), but most Americans want to see troops leaving Iraq. With a smaller force there, redeployment rates will decrease. Stop-loss will decrease or completely end. Troops having to serve three, four and five tours in Iraq will be a thing of the past.

I don’t want to see ANY troops in Iraq, but 50,000 is far less than the current level (142,000). The whole point is that troops will begin to leave en masse, and to me — that is nothing but a good thing.

Now, Afghanistan…

[cross-posted at ThePajamaPundit.com]

“I’m here tonight to say a few words about an American hero I have come to know very well and admire very much — Senator John McCain. And then, according to the rules agreed to by both parties, John will have approximately thirty seconds to make a rebuttal.”
- President-elect Barack Obama’s intro to his speech honoring John McCain

Entire speech below the fold.

I’m here tonight to say a few words about an American hero I have come to know very well and admire very much — Senator John McCain. And then, according to the rules agreed to by both parties, John will have approximately thirty seconds to make a rebuttal.

But in all seriousness, on this night, we are glad that the days of rebuttals and campaigning are for now behind us. There is no doubt that throughout the summer and the fall, John and I were fierce competitors who engaged in a vigorous and sometimes heated debate over the issues of the day. And in a great democracy, this debate is both healthy and necessary.

But what is even healthier and more necessary is the recognition that after the season of campaigning has ended, each of us in public life has a responsibility to usher in a new season of cooperation built on those things we hold in common. Not as Democrats. Not as Republicans. But as Americans.

And there are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain. It is what he has strived for and achieved throughout his life. It is built into the very content of his character.

I could stand here and recite the long list of John’s bipartisan accomplishments. Campaign finance reform. Immigration. The Patients’ Bill of Rights. All those times he has crossed the aisle and risked the ire of his party for the good of his country. And yet, what makes John such a rare and courageous public servant is not the accomplishments themselves, but the true motivation behind them.

It has not been a quest for fame or vanity that has driven this man. It has not been the need to compromise for politics’ sake that has shaped his distinguished career. It is rather a pure and deeply felt love of his country that comes from the painful knowledge of what life is like without it.

Few of us can imagine what John endured during the days he spent in that lonely prison cell, but perhaps we can imagine that surviving such an ordeal provides a unique and renewed perspective about what is important and wU S Navy attack pilot John McCain begins his nearly six years of harsh imprisonment after being shot down near Hanoi during the Vietnam warhat is not; about what is worth fighting over and what is not.

We can imagine that the pettiness and bitterness and immaturity that often pervades our politics seems even more unworthy of our country from this perspective; that the incessant bickering and partisanship for the sake of scoring a few political points seems even smaller. And what seems bigger and more worthy of defending are those ideals we hold in common as Americans: liberty, equality and opportunity.

Those are the ideals that John has spent and risked his life fighting for, and his example is one for all of us to remember and to follow as we seek to defend those ideals against the common threats to our prosperity and our security.

So I’d like to thank John for all he’s done and ask him to come join me on stage for a moment.

Thank you, John, for your service to America and the service you will continue to render in the months and years ahead. And I’d like to close by asking all of you to join us in making this bipartisan dinner not just an inaugural tradition, but a new way of doing the people’s business in this city.

We will not always agree on everything in the months to come, and we will have our share of arguments and debates. But let us strive always to find that common ground, and to defend together those common ideals, for it is the only way we can meet the very big and very serious challenges that we face right now.

Thank you, God Bless You. And may God Bless America.

McCain did it a couple days ago when the RNC released an ad essentially trying to raise questions about the language Obama used during press conferences, and today Gingrich sounds the same alarm.

From Politico:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is denouncing Republican attempts to link President-elect Barack Obama and disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Senator John McCain Sunday distanced himself from Republican National Committee attacks on Obama, and in a letter to RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, Gingrich went further, writing:
I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over seventy years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

The recent web advertisement, “Questions Remain,” is a destructive distraction. Clearly, we should insist that all taped communications regarding the Senate seat should be made public. However, that should be a matter of public policy, not an excuse for political attack.

In a time when America is facing real challenges, Republicans should be working to help the incoming President succeed in meeting them, regardless of his Party.

From now until the inaugural, Republicans should be offering to help the President-elect prepare to take office.

It’s encouraging to see that some Republicans politicians are at least trying to be post-partisan. But will the RNC take the ad down? Or will they continue to wage the same old tired partisan warfare?

We shall see…

I never understood why Republicans were so hot to talk about Reverend Wright in the general election when so much had been said in the primaries, but many in the GOP are still slamming McCain for not “getting tough.”

Well, guess what? McCain’s own people said that “getting tough” could have destroyed him.

From Politico:

John McCain’s top pollster, Bill McInturff, said this evening that attacking Barack Obama over his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright would not have helped McCain’s campaign and could have destroyed his presidency, had he been elected.

Some Republicans were angry during the campaign that McCain had — reportedly for reasons of principle, and out of concern that he’d be viewed as racist — refused to air ads with Wright’s inflammatory sermons, and believed they were fair game and a silver bullet against Obama. An outside group did air one such ad in the closing days of the race.

“I said ‘Look, if f we do win we’ll win with about 273 electoral votes and we’ll lose the popular vote by 3 million,’” recalled McInturff of the internal discussions about cutting attack ads with Wright. “If [McCain] had used that issue that way, you’d already be delegitimized as a president. You couldn’t function as government.”

McInturff also said that McCain’s burden in the final days was to close the gap with young voters and Latino voters.

Yeah, I’m sure attack ads about Wright would’ve really brought back the youth and Latino vote.

Moving on…

A new report from the Senate Armed Services Committee places significant blame for abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay on former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

The report’s executive summary, made public by the committee’s Democratic chairman Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and its top Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Rumsfeld contributed to the abuse by authorizing aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay on December 2, 2002.

He rescinded the authorization six weeks later. But the report said word of his approval continued to spread within U.S. military circles and encouraged the use of harsh techniques as far away as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report concluded that Rumsfeld’s actions were “a direct cause of detainee abuse” at Guantanamo and “influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques … in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The report concluded that the abuses were not merely a case of a few soldiers acting on their own but the result of decisions made at the highest levels within the Department of Defense. The report also faults President Bush for signing a memorandum in February of 2002 that stated the Geneva Convention did not apply to the U.S. war with al Qaeda.

While I know there are still plenty of people who view torture as an acceptable means of extracting information from terrorists, I have long argued that we damage the deepest principles of America and compromise our moral authority when we resort to abuse — even when we do so in the name of our own defense. The “but our enemies are worse” argument holds no water for me. Yes, they are much, much worse. That doesn’t matter. We can’t let our enemies set the standards for morality.

Careful observers have long known that the instances of detainee abuse were not just the result of a few “overzealous” soldiers but the result of an administration that overreached in its quest for victory. I’m glad the Senate Armed Services Committee was willing to place the blame where it belongs: at the top.

More evidence that Joe Wurzelbacher knows little more than what his gut tells him:

Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”

Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen.”

“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Actually, when Americans heard exactly why the bailout was needed, they were much more likely to support it. To say that a different way…when it wasn’t characterized as a “bailout”, but a way to save our entire banking system so the economy didn’t go completely sideways, people responded much more favorably to the idea that government intervention was needed.

But Joe? He just goes with his gut.

You know what else his gut told him? I’m sure you’ve already guessed it…

While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain during the interview, he had nothing but praise for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said.

You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to 2012.

At the end of the day, this election didn’t come down to character. McCain’s campaign tried to make it about that by bringing up people like Ayers, but voters said, “Who cares?” and gave Obama 53% of the popular vote.

In other news…Reverend Wright is back in the news and saying some incredibly dumb things…

“And the gates of Hell–listen to the promise–the gates of Hell–neither ABC nor CNN–the gates of Hell–neither Hannity nor O’Reilly–the gates of Hell–neither Time, Time magazine, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune … the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Nothing will be impossible with God.”

He referred to Elizabeth Hasselback of ABC’s The View as “that dumb broad” and said Guantánamo Bay was a result of colonialism. “What are we doing in Cuba? We just take stuff.”

Good times.

I do think one of the biggest reasons McCain started seeing more negative coverage in the last half of the campaign is he went negative and cut off press access, so the press were left to report on nothing but the negative campaigning.

This put Obama in the role of the victim, and so he got to fire back at the McCain camps “unfair” attacks.

And then there was Palin, who was completely cut off from the press and so they just kept digging into her background and uncovering one weird thing after another. And then her interviews and the questions about her readiness and it all came tumbling down.

Then the financial crisis hit and McCain’s team took a big gamble and suspended the campaign. And when congressional Republicans essentially ignored McCain, the press reported that.

Joe Gandelman weighs in…

Obama reportedly kept his distance from the press corps but didn’t aggravate them since there was no substantive shift as the campaign went on in the way he dealt with the press. McCain made a major shift, freezing out (and often blasting) the press after July, after having been one of journalists’ most accessible and beloved politicos. A huge mistake (which we noted at the time). Obama didn’t take anything away from the press; McCain did. Any reporter will tell you that having direct access to prime sources may not change the reporting of a story, but it could influence how reporters perceive a story if they are locked out from hearing first hand from the primary sources. In addition to squandering his imagery, McCain squandered a still potentially advantageous relationship with reporters covering his campaign.

So, in the end, I think McCain’s strategy was why most of the coverage about him was negative, not because the press, who had loved him before, was biased against him or for Obama.

Dan Gilgoff at Politico writes that very little has changed in the evangelical political world:

Evangelicals are still much more concerned with so-called wedge issues than any other demographic group. A Barna Group poll found that 40 percent of evangelicals chose their presidential candidate based on his position on “moral issues,” compared with 9 percent of other voters.

And the movement’s leaders are still leading the conservative charge in the culture wars. Most of the 29 state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage that have passed were organized by Focus on the Family, its state affiliates and other evangelical activists.

Perhaps most strikingly, the anticipated evangelical shift away from McCain never happened. Despite widespread predictions that many evangelicals would stay home or pull the lever for Obama, McCain managed to collect more white evangelical voters than George W. Bush four years ago.

Obama did get 5% more of the white evangelical vote than did John Kerry in 2004, but there was no great shift away from the Republican party and those voters are just as exclusively concerned with a few wedge issues today as they were four or eight years ago.

What’s interesting is that McCain received 1.5 million more evangelical votes than did George Bush in 2004. That voter block did not stay home. But neither was it able to deliver the election. That’s not good news for evangelical leaders who’ve staked their power and influence on their ability to deliver electoral victories for Republicans. Wedge issue are only useful if more people end up on your side of the wedge. The moment it goes the other way, your group becomes a lot more expendable.

Not that I think the Republicans will kick out the religious conservatives or stop kowtowing to that group’s demands. But the results of this year’s election do bring into question how long the Republicans can tie themselves so closely to one narrow ideology and still remain a viable political force. I wouldn’t shed a tear if the evangelical wing of the Republican party ceased holding sway, but I’m not going to hold my breath. It’ll take more than one or two failed elections before Republicans will believe their most devoted base can no longer deliver electoral success.

Why?

Well, this surely isn’t the only reason, but he’s up for reelection in 2012 and Napolitano was seen as his chief rival. Now, for all intents and purposes, she’s off the table unless she wants to leave the DHS after a few years and start running for the Senate. That’s certainly not unthinkable, but definitely not as likely as if she stayed Governor.

In any event, here’s his statement from The Page:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today commended the announcement of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as top contender for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and made the following statement:

Today, Senator McCain called and congratulated Governor Janet Napolitano on her emergence as top contender for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Senator McCain said “Governor Napolitano’s experience as the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Arizona’s Attorney General, and as Governor warrants her rapid confirmation by the Senate and I hope she is quickly confirmed.” Senator McCain looks forward to working with her throughout the nomination process.

By the way…so far everybody’s playing nice during this process and we’re definitely still in that honeymoon period. But…when do you think the other shoe will drop? Will it be a policy matter or a staffing selection?

Well, my home state definitely took its sweet damn time announcing this, but now it’s finally official that we picked Mac, which means we’ve picked the loser for only the 2nd time in the past 100 years.

Here’s more…

The narrow McCain Missouri victory, by just 3,902 votes out of 2,888,000 cast, means that Missouri sided with the presidential loser for just the second time in the last century.

Missouri also “got it wrong” in 1956, when it delivered a narrow 3,984-vote win to Democrat Adlai Stevenson over Republican incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The state had remained unclaimed this year as election officials awaited final results from four locales — the city and county of St. Louis, Jackson County near Kansas City and from rural Montgomery County. Those tallies arrived Wednesday at the Secretary of State’s office.

McCain gained 31 votes in the final returns, while Obama actually lost 235 votes. Election officials found that a figure for the Illinois senator had been improperly entered and corrected the error in the new totals, said spokesman Ryan Hobart.

One thing’s for sure…when we’re wrong we’re not wrong by much. Less than 8,000 in the past 100 years? Wow.

And sure, Obama could contest the results, but there’s no point to that.

So that means the final electoral tally is…

Obama: 365
McCain: 173

And scene.

John McCain is back in the Senate and apparently getting ready to run for his seat again in 2010:

WASHINGTON – The red-and-blue Senate trolley rolled up to the Capitol basement Tuesday, a lone senator in the front seat checking a piece of paper before slipping it back into his jacket pocket.

“Welcome back,” Sen. McCain, someone called out.

“Thank you, good to see ya,” came the well-practiced reply as he stepped to the ground.

Then, a more familiar greeting from another senator who had been riding in back.

“John, wait up,” called Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clapping a big hand on John McCain’s shoulder. The pair conferred quietly as they rode up an escalator toward lunch with their colleagues.

Two failed presidential nominees, minus Secret Service detail or much suspense about their futures, back to the Senate — same as it ever was.

Both men plan to stick around for awhile.

McCain decided Tuesday night to set up a political action committee, a step toward running for a fifth Senate term in 2010, an aide told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the decision had not yet been made public.

There is some speculation that McCain may face the popular Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, and that he may actually have a run for his money.