Blago Fills Obama’s Seat Anyways

Word is just hitting the news that Blagojevich is going to name Former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as Obama’s replacement for his vacated Senate seat. Unfortunately Tim is out of reach so I really don’t know much about this guy but I’m sure we’ll find out a lot in the coming hours.

Blackwater Banned in Iraq, Lose State Deparment Contract?

MSNBC is reporting that Blackwater, the private military firm based out of Moyock, North Carolina, may be banned from operating within the country and that the State Department was suggested that it not renew it’s contract with the company.

Minnesotans Welcoming our Lizardmen Overlords

Over on DailyKos there was a link to examples of some of the ballots that are being recounted in Minnesota for the race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. The main point of contention is “voter intent” and what they were intending to vote for with these contested ballots. Most of them consist of just stray marks and arrows and stuff like that, things that have to be interpreted by election workers. Seems boring, no? Well this one is the best one:

Democratic Majority Capitulates to Lieberman

In another grand display of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s leadership, the Senate Democratic Caucus voted overwhelmingly 42-13 to allow Independent Senator Joe Lieberman to keep his chairmanship of the influential Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. This is pretty disheartening move on the part of the Senate and shows that despite the clear message sent two weeks ago, they’re going to be marching to their own beat. I, personally, feel that while booting him out of the caucus might be a little bit too much, allowing him to continue to chair such an influential committee while publicly attacking the Democrats and Barack Obama was not an option. We have many qualified Senators who would’ve been able to take over the role of Chairman and do a better job with the committee than Lieberman did and is going to do.

President-Elect Obama

President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden.

Ending in a somewhat anti-climactic victory as California was called for Obama at 11 PM EST which put him over 270, something that anyone who understands the Electoral College saw coming, Senator Barack Obama became President-Elect Obama. Soon thereafterwords Senator John McCain gave a gracious and stirring concession speech as he held back tears a couple of times, Governor Sarah Palin showing her emotions a little more as she watched from the side. After midnight, Obama came onto stage and gave a powerful acceptance speech to two-hundred thousand supporters in Grant Park, joined by Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden and the rest of their families. Even more important was the social barrier that has finally been broken, that of a black President. I’ve seen a few people say that his election was the true ending of the civil war, a statement I don’t exactly disagree with.

Election Eve

What a long and crazy ride it’s been over the past two years. In the longest Presidential campaign ever we’re finally a few hours away from when the first booths open up at midnight in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire and about 24 hours away from the first predictions. This is probably one of the most important elections in recent history for a number of reasons. Tim and I have already absentee voted in our respective states and I know a few others are heading out to Virginia polling booths in the early morning to try and beat the lines. I think we’ll get a pretty good idea of where this election is headed pretty early on. States like Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina all close their polls around 8 and if Obama wins Pennsylvania and one more of those states he’ll win the election. I know Tim disagrees with my outlook on how fast the race will be called but that’s just my opinion on the whole thing.

I can’t promise I’ll update much tomorrow evening as I have practice at 8 and from there on out I’ll be glued to the tube till we know the winner. So for anyone who reads this, go out and vote!

Obama’s Grandmother Dies at 86

In some sad news coming out just a day before the election, Obama’s grandmother Madelyn Dunham, died in Hawaii after losing her battle with cancer. A few weeks ago Obama made a quick detour to head back to Hawaii to visit her when her condition worsened and early this morning she had died. It’s a shame that she died today because the election is basically Obama’s to lose and she won’t be able to see him become President (Elect) should he win.

Campaign Ads Reach Video Games

Sorry, thought this would be interesting, instead of writing, I’ll just post the article. Thought this was interesting regardless of policy. I believe the article says ads will run until November 3, and vary from state to state which is interesting, I wonder how they are able to distinguish state from state via the IPS. Directly following read more link is the Fox Report in its entirety.

Obama Raises $150 Million in September, Gets Endorsed by Gen. Colin Powell

Two pretty big newstories about Obama came out over the weekend. The first was that on Meet the Press yesterday, Fmr. Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.) endorsed Obama for President over his long time friend John McCain

Wow.

Electoral map courtesy of Pollster.com

If this map is anything to go by, and there’s no real reason as to why it shouldn’t be pretty accurate, John McCain is going to have to kick his campaign into high gear and maintain it for the next three weeks if he wants to have any chance at winning this election. Pollster.com now has Obama sitting at an estimated 320 electoral votes compared to John McCain’s 158, with 60 votes still considered up for grabs. Just a quick bit of math shows that Obama has more than double the amount of votes as McCain, and 50 more than is needed to be elected.