The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state’s long-running Senate race, paving the way for a resolution in the seven-month fight over the seat.

Now Tim Pawlenty must certify Senator Franken.

UPDATE: Finally, Norm Coleman has conceded.

Ah, Louisiana.

Georgia, I know Virginia and North Carolina.
And Georgia, you’re no Virginia or North Carolina.

Woe are the Democrats who will have to make do with 58-59 members of their senate caucus, total control of the House and a President with a serious mandate.

We’ll muddle through.

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term. The longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate trailed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 3,724 votes after Tuesday’s count. That’s an insurmountable lead with only about 2,500 overseas ballots left to be counted.

11:37: It happened here. In America.

11:00
BARACK
OBAMA
ELECTED
44TH
PRESIDENT
OF
THE
UNITED
STATES

10:44: Fox calls VA for Obama. YES. YES.

10:04: Chris Wallace calls Bob Schaffer and Tom Udall “two very attractive men”

10:00 Iowa goes Obama. WOOT.

9:39 Fred Barnes is pissy.

9:38 New Mexico baby. SO EXCITED

9:31 O-H-I-O

9:24: NBC calls OHIO.

9:20: Fox calling Ohio… we’ll see.

9:01 Minnesota comes home

8:53: NC called for Kay Hagan. Woot!

8:43: Me on Oct. 29 – “I don’t like making predictions, but I think this is one worth making. Sen. Obama will win Pennsylvania.”

8:30 CNN calls NH for Obama. Guess Mac ain’t back there.

8:25 Florida looking GOOOD

8:22 Sen pickup in NH, and looking good in NC…

8:05 PA CALLED FOR OBAMA per NBC

7:08: Vermont FTW.

7:03: Mark Warner wins. Shocker.

6:0pm: Exit polls are out, but they just don’t matter. Go freaking vote.

5:09pm: So, hows it going?

Map:

I feel pretty safe with this map. I’m conservative when it comes to these things, though I wouldn’t be surprised now with an Obama win in FL, OH, MO and even NC. Of those, the most likely to flip is FL which would be a huge prize.

In the Senate, I think Dems will pick up 7 seats (MN, NM, AK, CO, NH, OR, VA). I feel like they will fall short in the NC race. That would work out to 57-42-1.

In the House, I have no clue what the margin will be but it will be more Democrats.

The RealClear Politics website’s average of polls, which gives Mr Obama a lead of 6.8 per cent over Mr McCain, offers a better guide to the situation. It compares to John Kerry’s lead just a few weeks before he lost the 2004 election to Mr Bush.

Ok, here is the RealClearPolitics average of polls from 2004:

Notice something? After late August of 2004, Sen. Kerry never had a lead on President Bush. That’s exactly the opposite of what the Financial Times said.

Again, I don’t think the election is in the bag. I think Sen. Obama is going to have to fight, fight, fight the last few weeks against a Republican attack machine who has never faced a situation this negative before. But let us not rewrite history – recent history – in order to create some narrative for John McCain that doesn’t exist.

Here is the current state of the race, using the RCP average.

At this point, Sen. McCain’s trajectory has more in common with Sen. Kerry’s.

An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.

The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio’s top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio’s top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don’t match records in other government databases.

Freepers react with their typical calm

If God allows this to happen, it’s going to be Smith & Wesson help us

America — and freedom — is a quaint, cute topic who’s time is passed.

Horsewhip the traitors. I guessing one Mister Kennedy was the key vote. I hope Obama gives his house to some homeless bums.

My Beretta is locked and loaded.

It is now just a matter of time! Our Country died today!

There’s a gun show in town this weekend. I’m seriuosly considering a 12 ga. pump and maybe a .45 auto

I’m thinking about a .38 special for my daughter.

I am bewildered and mad as hell that we are now witnessing the death of our REPRESENTED REPUBLIC style of government (not a shot fired) and those of whom we placed our trust (according to their oath of office) are killing it as we do nothing to stop them. God help us all.

Love it.

UPDATE: Here’s video of Republican Bob Schaffer whining because he can’t bring notes in to a debate.

A month after her 100th birthday, Dilla Freeman Burt cast the first vote of her long life — for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

It’s the excitement surrounding these elections — a woman running for vice president and a black man running for president — that prompted Burt to action, said her daughter, Phyllis Burt.

‘I was feeding her ice cream when she decided she wanted to vote,’ Phyllis Burt said. ‘I almost fell out of my chair. I was floored that after all these years of the family pestering her about voting that she’d decided to do it.’

Burt registered to vote earlier this month in Davidson County.

Davidson County Election Commission workers visited nursing homes Thursday to collect ballots from older voters who can’t get around or need help voting. A nurse took Dilla Burt in a wheelchair to the Bordeaux Long-Term Care lobby, where an election worker asked her whom she wanted to vote for. She gave her answer loud enough for witnesses to hear, and the worker marked the ballot.

On Thursday night, a nurse slowly fed a frail Burt chicken and mashed potatoes from a tray.

‘Mom, who did you vote for?’ Phyllis Burt asked.

‘Obama,’ her mother quietly replied.

Thanks to S.M. for sending this one in.

At about 11:30 pm, he told the crowd, they should switch over to Fox News, the network on which the right-leaning O’Reilly hosts a top-rated talk/news show.

A chorus of boos erupted from the crowd. Fox, of course, is vilified by many Democrats, who believe it favors Republicans. Obama himself has gone after the network at times.

‘No, no, bear with me here,’ Brown shouted, as boos continued raining down. ‘No, no, you’ll want to do this. You don’t like Fox, but sometimes Fox has gotta do the right thing, so you’re gonna watch Fox,’ he continued.

‘About quarter till 12 on election night, it’s gonna be Bill O’Reilly sitting there with Sean Hannity,’ he said, drawing another cascade of jeers from the crowd at the mention of another popular conservative Fox host.

‘No, no wait a sec, this is gonna be too much fun. You’re not gonna be booing ‘cause you know what’s coming next. So Hannity – they’re going through all these numbers and Barack’s won California, New York and Illinois and Michigan and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and all these others. And, you know McCain wins Utah or something,’ Brown said, drawing appreciative laughs and claps from the energized crowd.

‘Then Hannity’s sitting there next to O’Reilly, and they’re looking at each other, and O’Reilly says, ‘You gonna do it?’ And Hannity says, ‘No.’ So O’Reilly – sweat’s coming, tears are coming down his cheeks – you can see ‘em on your flat screen. And O’Reilly says, ‘Well, Ohio went for Barack Obama. He’s gonna be president of the United States!’

But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts — telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans’ accounts have recently shed.

I got mine yesterday. -11% for the quarter. -30% for the year. And that was before this week’s round of losses. Now, I’ve got (knock on wood) about 35 years to ride the market out, but many voters don’t. If you are at or near retirement years the global economic collapse has devastated your future in a way we haven’t seen for a long time. And somehow a politician talking about an obscure ’60s radical won’t quite cut the mustard.

I’m not saying we won’t have any Florida-style suspense (though I pray we don’t) but we will know who the winner is without it having to go to the House of Representatives to break a tie.

I think there’s an 85% chance Sen. Obama will win. That’s been my number for most of the election season. Right after the 2006 election that number was at 90%. If Sen. Clinton was the nominee my estimate would be at 80%. The only time I’ve felt the number was 80% was during the most recent dip in the polling, for what ever you want to make of that. By comparison, I thought 2004 was a 50-50 shot, and I thought 2000 was 70% likely for Gore. I figured no way America would be dumb enough to vote for Bush, and while on the raw numbers I was right, it was close enough to steal.

Here’s my current – and by current I mean right at this hour, it changes regularly depending on my mood and what I’ve had for lunch – map of how I best guess the election will turn out.

In this scenario, Sen. Obama would win 286-252, which funny enough is the result of the 2004 election. Right now I also think Sen. Obama will win the popular vote, thanks to his strength in big population states like CA and NY as well as increased black turnout across the board in places like GA, NC, SC, MD, LA, AL, MS which won’t help the electoral college but help the bottom line. Electoral-college wise I think the black vote will help in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. And the Hispanic vote in NV, CO and NM. I gave OH, NV, and FL to McCain in this map, though I could see either of those as Obama states, while I think McCain could flip NH or MI.

This is just a guess. And gut feeling. Anything can happen.

And purely for giggles, this 383-185 map is what Obama supporters dream of or see when they’re drunk as a skunk. A snowball’s chances in hell are far better than this happening, but a guy can dream.

# Colorado: Obama leads 49 – 45 percent, compared to 47 percent for McCain and 46 percent for Obama August 24;

# Michigan: Obama tops McCain 48 – 44 percent, compared to 46 – 42 percent July 24;

# Minnesota: Obama leads 47 – 45 percent, compared to 46 – 44 percent July 24;

# Wisconsin: Obama leads McCain 49 – 42 percent, compared to 50 – 39 percent July 24.

If the election comes down to Colorado and Sen. Obama wins, the decision to hold the convention there is going to look genius. Minnesota is closer than I would like to see it though (which may be a GOP convention effect).