[Program Note: I am taking today off and instead had to dig out a column from five years ago, because of one election result not many are paying attention to. Actually, I will be taking tomorrow off, but I'm spending today writing up the Friday Talking Points column, which will not only appear on schedule, but will actually appear tomorrow much earlier in the day than normal. But today I thought would be a good day to take a look back to five years ago, and a meandering prediction I made which, again, nobody really seems to be noticing in the media right now. I'll have much more to say on this subject tomorrow, and in the days to come. Because the American voters in Puerto Rico have just approved moving towards becoming one of the United States of America. This hasn't happened in two generations worth of history, it bears pointing out, but the media hasn't woken up to what it is going to mean yet. So, as background to what I'll be saying tomorrow, here's what I had to say five years ago.]

Originally Published June 17, 2007

In the midst of the immigration debate raging in both houses of Congress, an old chestnut has been revived by Republicans: declaring English the national language. The issue polls extremely high with the general public, and Republicans even passed an amendment in the Senate earlier this month by a vote of 64-33, which means a bunch of Democrats (17 of them) voted for it as well. A similar amendment is part of the debate in the House. My question to these lingual purists is: what happens if Puerto Rico becomes the 51st state of the Union?

This is one of those back-burner issues that comes up for a vote now and again (in Puerto Rico), but then "never actually happens" -- so Americans feel free to ignore it as a whole. Or, I should say, "Americans outside of Puerto Rico," since all Puerto Ricans are already American citizens. But every referendum that happens, the percentage voting for statehood gets larger and larger. While it shouldn't be seen as an inevitability, it should indeed be seen as a strong possibility. Say, within the next ten years or so.

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I have to admit, I did not write a concession column, just in case I needed it.

Seriously, a man running for the most powerful office in the country didn't bother to plan for one of the two contingencies that were guaranteed to happen last night? And he wanted us to let him make crucial decisions for all of us? Willard Mitt Romney's shocking lack of preparedness last night, when it came to speech time, was truly the icing on the sweet, sweet cake of Barack Hussein Obama's second victorious election, at least for me.

Then I looked around at the rest of the election, and saw that America hadn't just re-elected a black man to the White House, but the entire country lurched leftwards last night in a significant fashion. Which is what my title refers to (conceived in homage to the greatest subtitle on a book, ever: Geoff Nunberg's Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show). Because Obama wasn't the only big winner last night -- so was pot smoking, and gay rights, and women, and Latinos. And liberalism. We're now a center-left country, so don't let anyone tell you differently (at least for the next two years).

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OK, let me start by saying that headline is really just a cheap joke. Sort of. The wonks of America will indeed start speculating about the 2014 and 2016 elections either tonight or sometime tomorrow morning, at the latest, but I'm going to refrain from such idle chatter for now, mostly because we've got this year's election to get through first.

I don't really have much to say today, other than to urge everyone to get out and vote for whomever you please. My wife will be voting in her first presidential election later today, so we're pretty excited just about the concept of "voting" in our household. She has voted before, but only in off-year elections (her first one was pretty disappointing, because it was an off-off-year election, so she had the thrill of voting for various dogcatcher type offices). But this one is a big one, surely we can all agree on that!

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Welcome to the last of these Electoral Math columns, at least for the next three and a half years. Today, we're just going to throw caution to the wind, and go ahead and predict the outcome of tomorrow night's returns. Before we get to that, though, a quick rundown of my previous record in the election prediction business, and then (for completeness' sake) the final electoral math graphs for 2012.

The 2008 election was the first one I publicly published my own prognostications on a presidential election. How did I do? Well, it depends on how you measure it. In the final 2008 Electoral Math column, I called 49 out of 51 Electoral College entities correctly. There are 51, of course, because Washington, D.C. is treated as a state in our presidential elections. So 49 out of 51 ain't too bad.

The two states I called wrong -- calling both erroneously for Obama -- were Missouri and Georgia. Now, Missouri is defensible, since it turned out to actually be the closest state in the entire election. John McCain only won the state by 3,903 votes out of over 2.9 million cast. So while I turned out to be wrong, at least it was inside the realm of possibility that Obama would win Missouri.

Georgia, well, that's not so defensible, is it? McCain won by over five percent, after all. Chalk it up to irrational exuberance for Obama. The day before the election of 2008, it was apparent to all that Obama was riding a gigantic wave into office, and the only real question was how far up the shore that wave would break. I got a little optimistic, and called one state that was clearly just too far.

But, overall, 49 out of 51 isn't too bad. Although it looks worse when considered as electoral votes (or "EV"). Back in 2008, Missouri had 11 EV and Georgia had 15 EV. So I got 26 EV wrong out of 538 EV -- which is almost five percent wrong. I called 390 EV for Obama, and he wound up with 364 EV. However you want to measure things, that's my previous record.

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Every so often, I get an idea which I know would make me millions of dollars. Today, I had another one: develop and market a pill which, when taken, would put you to sleep until the morning after the election. The pill would be magically timed to work no matter when you took it, meaning a citizen in Texas or California might not want to take one until perhaps mid-October, but the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire might be expected to take one New Year's Eve -- thus avoiding not only the debates and punditary frenzy of the general election, but the entire primary season as well. It would be marketed under the name "The Rip Van Winkle Pill."

OK, I fully admit that this would be medically dangerous, and likely downright impossible. But, hey, I bet I'd sell a bunch of RVW pills anyway (at least in the fantasy world of my overwrought imagination). How many of us would be tempted, at some point, to just say to friends and family, "I'll be out until November seventh, so just leave me a message and I'll get back to you then."

As the 2012 election season draws to a close, it feels (as always) as though it's lasted four full years. At least to me, but maybe I'm just jaded and exhausted because I pay such close attention to politics (speaking of things which are medically dangerous...).

It's gotten so bad that I can't even bring myself to write a talking points column today. Oh, sure, I could give President Obama another award for his response to Hurricane Sandy, and even say a few nice things about Chris Christie, for whom I've always had a soft spot, just because of his double-barrelled "Chris" name (on which subject, I fully admit, I am biased).

I could go back and dig out the best talking points of the election from Obama and other Democrats out there on the hustings, but at this point it really feels like it would be a wasted effort. How many of you, reading this, are still unsure about which candidate you're going to vote for? I have pro-Obama readers, I have pro-Romney readers (no, really!), and I bet I even have a few pro-third-party readers to boot. But I really seriously doubt anyone who is still unsure is spending time today reading my column. I could be wrong (I often am), but it just feels like there's no one left to convince, one way or the other.

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Obama Steadily Gains, But Is It Enough?

Welcome to an extremely abbreviated version of our monthly Obama Poll Watch column. The reason for such unexpected brevity is due to election season, of course, and being snowed under by everything else that's going on.

These charts, we strenuously remind everyone, are not connected to the election. Well, at best, only nebulously connected. Once again, these are the numbers for Barack Obama's average job approval as president, not a matchup of him as a candidate in any way.

Having said all of that, let's get right to the charts:

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

October, 2012

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It's that time of year again, so gather 'round, kiddies, for our spine-tingling and bone-chilling tales of political horror!

This Hallowe'en, we've got not only two frightful nightmares to recount, but actually three, so that absolutely nobody will feel left out. Yes, horrific futures await not only for Democrats and Republicans, but one at the end for everybody to run from, shrieking in terror all the while!

As always, our spooky stories are accompanied by hand-carved Jack-o-lanterns (so that I can write off "pumpkin purchase" on my taxes). That first one's supposed to be a baseball mitt (get it... Mitt?), but admittedly wasn't my best effort. The second one's supposed to be red, too. The third one came out OK, I thought... but I digress.

To get back into the frightful spirit, let's turn off the lights, and everyone make a circle and turn on your flashlights and point them at your chins (for the proper spooky atmosphere), and we'll begin with our skeleton-rattling, chain-dragging tales of fearful futures...

Democratic Nightmare

The unemployment number is released on Friday, and America is shocked to see it rise to 8.4 percent. As a result, a late-breaking wave of voters all swing to Mitt Romney, and he comfortably wins election next Tuesday.

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The worst of times always brings out the best in people. When disaster strikes, people tend to rediscover their inner humanity.

This should be food for thought, as the East Coast begins cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy, one week before a presidential election. The worst of times brings out the best in us all, even if we were just screaming at each other yesterday over some political question.

To put this another way, that fireman or ambulance driver or just Joe Q. Citizen who is saving you and your loved ones is not a Republican fireman or a Democratic ambulance driver. They're human beings -- nothing more, and nothing less.

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Are you worried that Frankenstorm will restrict your access to up-to-date polling numbers? Do you know more about the state of the race in places you’ve never been to, but haven’t decided what to do for Hallowe’en yet? Then you have come to the right place! With one week to go before Election Day dawns, the race for president is about as tight as it can get, so let's get right to it.

First, a look at the overall state of the electoral math:

[Click on any of theses graphs to see larger-scale versions.]

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No matter what your political affiliations, I think we can all agree we're getting a little burnt out on Election 2012. "When will it end?" we wonder -- and we don't even live in a state currently under siege in the continuing television ad war. We can only imagine what Ohioans, Floridians, and Virginians must be experiencing right now.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems we've entered a lull in the election. Maybe it's just my own exhaustion with our quadrennial political circus, but it seems things have settled in for the bitter end of the campaign. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have made their points, and are out there fighting for every last undecided voter (in certain states). The only unknown in the political world is going to become an obsession among the chattering classes precisely one week from today, as the last monthly unemployment rate figure is released, mere days before the election. In the meantime, Hallowe'en will take place. So we're going to take a break from the presidential election this week, and instead make what is (to the best of our memory) our very first official endorsement of any candidate for political office. But we'll get to Hank in a moment.

Because it is Hallowe'en week (we suppose), the story broke today that none other than the venerable Meat Loaf had announced his support for Mitt Romney. Also, a late-season hurricane is threatening the East Coast, and we're pleased to see the mass media has come up with a seasonally-appropriate cutesy-pie name. All large weather events now get their own moniker, logo, and (we assume) theme music, because there are whole graphics departments sitting around in national television network headquarters with very little else to do right now (or something). This is even more ridiculous when you consider that hurricanes actually already have their own name and everything. But I guess "Sandy" just doesn't strike the proper amount of fear in the public's heart. That's understandable, since every "Sandy" I've ever known has been pleasant, friendly, and great to be around in general.

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