A lot happened last night. So if you weren’t keeping score…here are the highlights… Moderate Arlen Specter lost to liberal Joe Sestak in PA… Conservative/Libertarian Rand Paul captured the Republican nomination in Kentucky from the establishment’s candidate… Dem Blanche Lincoln didn’t get enough votes to prevent a runoff in Arkansas… However, in the special election [...]

Heard about this? Well, you will. Basically, open primaries are where the top two vote getters move on to the general, with the hopeful net result being that Dems and Repubs wouldn’t have to appeal to the more extreme elements of their party to get to the big show. Here’s more… So, no more party [...]

First things first….obviously most conservatives don’t believe this. However, Ann Coulter has said something very similar. The audio… And here’s a partial transcript… DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose [...]

I feel dumber for having seen this, but it’s so hilariously clueless that I couldn’t stop watching. (Stolen from BTB. Thx Doug!)

This is BIG news as it’ll ensure that a lot more people participate. From Des Moines Register: Sources from both the Iowa Democratic Party and Republican Party of Iowa say they are getting ready to jointly announce a date for the 2010 Iowa caucuses. For the first time, they’ll be held on a Saturday afternoon [...]

The Obama administration has undoubtedly breathed a sigh of relief after the pro-western coalition won yesterday’s parliamentary vote in Lebanon. After the president’s big speech about improving relationships between America and the Mid-East, a Hezbollah win in Lebanon would have been seen by many as a strong rebuke to Obama. Of course, calling the election [...]

Earlier today I posted about Jindal’s suspect Hurricane Katrina story and now his handlers are revising the record. First, the clip… And now, the truth from Politico: The spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, said the story Jindal told in his response to Obama actually took place some days later in Lee’s office — though still in Katrina’s [...]

However, Norm Coleman is going to the courts to add even more rejected absentee ballots. Still, to overcome a 225 votes deficit at this point seems extremely unlikely. Here’s more from the Star Tribune… DFLer Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 225 votes over Coleman, according to a newspaper tally of the officials’ count [...]

What looked completely unlikely just a few weeks ago has turned around for the funnyman as he has won some key decisions in the past week and is now ahead by just 46 votes. That’s right…46 votes. From the Star Tribune: A state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday narrowed the options available for Sen. Norm Coleman [...]

In fact, it’s the widest margin ever for any non-incumbent who has won the POTUS. Check out these numbers… So maybe it really was a landslide? Still, as Nate Silver points, if you slice this onion a different way and look at the votes as a % of the total registered voters, Reagan comes out [...]

The plot thickens… The state’s five member Canvassing Board, which oversees the recount, is meeting to decide how to deal with thousands of absentee ballots that are not included in the recount. Franken’s campaign says the ballots were wrongly rejected, and that about 6,400 ballots were wrongly disqualified. Coleman’s team says the board doesn’t have [...]

With more than 3/4ths of the precincts counted, it looks like Franken will fall short, barring some wild turn around in how these votes are shaking out. Still, FiveThirtyEight thinks there’s a chance… The Star Tribune now puts Coleman’s lead at 180 votes, and the Secretary of State, 167 votes. (The Star Tribune’s tally appears [...]

I’m following the Minnesota recount pretty closely because we could potentially have the makings of a super majority on our hands if Franken wins the recount and Jim Martin is able to beat Saxby Chambliss in Georgia. In any event, after the first day Franken had cut Coleman’s lead from 215 to 172. And today [...]

The Hardball panel dissects the weirdness going on up in Minnesota. Long story short, whoever wins has the best lawyers…much like Florida in 2000.

As I noted last night, the Minnesota recount is under way and Al Franken made up some serious ground in the first day. Still, why is he contesting the above ballot? More from StarTribune: The bubble beside Norm Coleman’s name appeared to have both an X and a squiggle in it, but the Al Franken [...]

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 [...]

Stevens had a 3,200 vote lead on election night, but that has completely evaporated. Yesterday, Doug posted that Mark Begich led by only 3 votes. Today that total is up to around 800. Begich: 132,196 Stevens: 131,382 And the Dems inch closer and closer to a supermajority…

Two days ago I asked the question “Where are the 130M votes?” Well, it seems like my basic math skills beat the predictions. 2004 Vote Total: 121,069,054 2008 Vote Total: 122,145,887 That’s a far cry from the projections of 130M+ we were told on Wednesday, and even with all the absentee and provisional ballots floating [...]

We’ve been told today that yesterday wasn’t just a win for Obama…it was a win for American democracy. People were finally energized to come out to the polls and both candidates broke records for the amount of votes they received. However…where are the totals proving this? First, the claims from Politico: More than 130 million [...]

That’s the word from their CNN’s exit polling, and that number is CRAZY. Oh note, first time voters make up about 10% of the registered voting population. Amazing.