By Catharine Skipp

As the Republican Party struggles to find its footing and craft a message it is in search of new national leader. Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer is considering making a bit for that role along with jockeying from Republican Party chairs Saul Anuzis of Michigan and South Carolina's Katon Dawson. Michael Steele, a self-described Lincoln Republican and the first African-American to hold statewide office in Maryland as Lt. Gov., is also believed to be in the running; he is said to be announcing as early as today.

The choice of RNC head will signal whether the party's emphasis is going to be conservative, following the lead of stars like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford or Sarah Palin, moderate in the image of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist or Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or somewhere in between, like Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal. “We need to discuss within the party who will be the RNC chair and where the philosophy will come from--the North or South, Conservative or Moderate,” Greer says “and what the party should push over the next four years as a message. Someone like Katon believes that the message needs to be more focused on social issues as much as with government issues.” Greer and Gov. Crist are more moderate “live and let live” voices. Greer believes that for the party to grow it needs to nod to the values issues and then move on. “We need to say ‘yes’ loud on pro-life and faith and family issues but then move on and focus on important American issues. No one is sitting at home talking about abortion or the gay movement. We have to be about employment opportunity, economic issues and challenges, the education of our children and retirement. My position is you can’t go either direction [moderate or conservative] without responding to the other group first. You cannot build a house with a weak foundation.”

Charles Ommanney / Getty Images for Newsweek.

Thank you.

When Stumper started a little over a year ago, I'd never covered a presidential campaign--or maintained a blog, for that matter. The thought of writing four or five times a day on a single subject seemed somewhat, well, daunting. Now, 13 months, 18 states, 21 debates, 1,672 posts, 35,416 comments and countless Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches later, it's the thought of not writing four of five times a day that's making me uneasy.

But alas: the stumping has ended, and so will Stumper.  

It's been an incredible year--jamming with Mike Huckabee, pulling an allnighter with John Edwards, following Rudy Giuliani across South Florida, meeting John McCain in a tiny Iowa diner, sitting in section 139 of Mile High Stadium as Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination. But without you guys, the readers, it would've been pointless. So I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude--for the tips, the ideas, the comments, the kudos and, most of all, the criticisms. I've striven to keep Stumper opinionated but impartial--"equal-opportunity skepticism," as I put it last October. If I've at all succeeded it's because you were always telling me when, in your view, I was wrong. From you, I heard every side of every story. Thanks for keeping me honest.

In the weeks and months ahead, I'll be returning to writing for the dead-tree magazine--about politics first and foremost, but also about crime, culture and (hopefully) food. More reporting, less punditry. I'll also be contributing to our (shhh!) forthcoming politics mega-blog alongside such NEWSWEEK luminaries as Holly Bailey, Richard Wolffe, Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff. If Stumper withdrawal has you itching for a quicker fix, I'd heartily recommend "Powering Up," our new blog about President-elect Obama's ongoing transition process. I'll be popping in there from time to time as well. And I'm even considering posting the occasional column in this space. Stay tuned.

For now, though, it's curtains. I'm always reachable at aromano@newsweek.com; email me whenever. And yes, marriage proposals are still being accepted.

Thanks again for the best year of my life.
Andrew
 

By Eleanor Clift 

Of the five new Democratic senators elected so far (three races are still unresolved), it’s fair to say each one of them has the potential to be a force in their party and in the governing majority Barack Obama is assembling on Capitol Hill. A quick look at some of the new faces who may soon become the men–and women–to see.

First among equals is Virginia’s Mark Warner. A popular former governor, he’s a young moderate with a gangly Jimmy Stewart-goes-to-Washington look. He made a fortune in the cell-phone business, and likes to say that when others find a ringing cell phone a disturbance, he hears ka-ching. As a self-made businessman–he didn’t come up through partisan horse-trading–he’s someone who can help Obama steer a centrist course. He’s also a likely future presidential candidate.

The Udall cousins: Mark Udall in Colorado and Tom Udall in New Mexico. Their last name is synonymous with progressive politics and the protection of natural resources–values they wove together in their respective campaigns to champion a new green-energy economy for the West. Mo Udall (Mark’s father) was the liberal alternative to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 primaries; Stuart Udall (Tom’s father) was Secretary of the Interior in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Kay Hagan in North Carolina defeated Republican icon, Elizabeth Dole because of huge support from women. Emily’s List, a pro-choice group that backed Hagan, found the two candidates split male voters 47-47 percent, but women preferred Hagan over Dole 55 percent to 45 percent. Dole’s last-ditch ad suggesting Hagan was godless backfired big-time. Hagan is no novice; she served five terms in the North Carolina Senate where she earned a reputation for effectiveness. She’ll move quickly to establish a more aggressive profile, on behalf of the state, than the genteel Dole, whose infrequent visits home became a campaign issue.

Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire. This was a rematch for Shaheen, who lost to Republican John Sununu in a bitter race six years ago. Shaheen benefited from the changed mood in the state (Democrats control the governor’s office and the legislature) along with a double-digit gender gap. Women are still underrepresented in the U.S. Senate with only 17 women out of 100 senators in the new Congress. Because of their small number, they stick together, often across party lines. Shaheen kept her political preference in the Democratic primary to herself, but her husband was an early co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Shaheen will be a major Hillary ally.

Every four years, NEWSWEEK detaches a team of reporters to follow the presidential candidates from announcement speech to Election Day. The deal is simple. The "Project" staffers won't report what they learn until Nov. 5; in exchange, the campaigns give us unprecedented behind-the-scenes access.

The first four chapters of the "The Project" are finally live on NEWSWEEK.com--and, as expected, they're packed with exclusive reporting and fascinating details.  You can read my favorite tidbits from Chapter One here.

Now for the highlights from Chapters Two, Three and Four:

Bill's Bile: In the days after his wife's back- from-the-brink victory in New Hampshire, Bill Clinton was full of righteous indignation. The former president had amassed an 81-page list of all the unfair and nasty things the Obama campaign had said, or was alleged to have said, about Hillary Clinton. The press was still in love with Obama, or so it seemed to Clinton, who complained to pretty much anyone who would listen. If the press wouldn't go after Obama, then Hillary's campaign would have to do the job, the ex-president urged. On Sunday, Jan. 13, Clinton got worked up in a phone conversation with Donna Brazile, a direct, strong-willed African-American woman who had been Al Gore's campaign manager and advised the Clintons from time to time. "If Barack Obama is nominated, it will be the worst denigration of public service," he told her, ranting on for much of an hour. Brazile kept asking him, "Why are you so angry?"

Obama's Appetites--or Lack Thereof: Obama was abstemious. Indeed, to the reporters following him, he appeared very nearly anorexic. Most candidates gain the Campaign 10 (or 15). Hillary was struggling with her waistline, as she gamely knocked back shots and beers in working-class bars and gobbled the obligatory sausage sandwiches thrust at her in greasy spoons along the Trail of the White Working-Class Voter. Obama, by contrast, lost weight. He regularly ate the same dinner of salmon, rice and broccoli. At Schoop's Hamburgers, a diner in Portage, Ind., he munched a single french fry and ordered four hamburgers—to go. At the Copper Dome Restaurant, a pancake house in St. Paul, Minn., he ordered pancakes—to go. (An AP reporter wondered: who gets pancakes for the road?) A waiter reeled off a long list of richly topped flapjacks, but Obama went for the plain buttermilk, saying, "I'm kind of traditionalist." Reporters joked that if he ate a single bite of burger or pancake once the doors of his dark-tinted SUV closed, they'd eat their BlackBerrys.

(Peter Dejong / AP)

Speaking just now from the White House's Rose Garden, President George W. Bush invoked the memory--and words--of Martin Luther King, Jr.--in describing Barack Obama's historic achievement. "It will be a stirring sight to see President Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their beautiful girls step through the doors of the White House," he said. "I know millions of Americans will be overcome with pride at this inspiring moment that so many have waited so long."

The current era of partisan comity will soon come to end, I'm sure. But that doesn't make it any less refreshing--or any less of an opportunity for Obama, should he choose to seize it. Here's hoping...

Obama, 364: Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Iowa, California, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Hawaii, Washington, D.C., Indiana, North Carolina

McCain, 173: Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Wyoming, North Dakota, West Virginia, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho, Arizona, Alaska, Montana, Missouri

Popular Vote: 52 percent Obama, 46 percent McCain 

Senate: Democrats 56, Republicans 40

House: Democrats 258, Republicans 177 

Every four years, NEWSWEEK detaches a team of reporters to follow the presidential candidates from announcement speech to Election Day. The deal is simple. The "Project" staffers won't report what they learn until Nov. 5; in exchange, the campaigns give us unprecedented behind-the-scenes access. The information is so hush-hush, in fact, that no one who works on the weekly magazine--including yours truly--is permitted to read the finished product until a winner is officially declared. Which meant I was up until 4:00 a.m., reading away.

Today, the first chapter of "The Project" goes live on NEWSWEEK.com--and, as expected, it's packed with exclusive reporting and fascinating details. Since this is a blog--and not the Library of Congress--I won't post the whole (long) thing here. But I will highlight my favorite tidbits below. You ADD-types can thank me later. 

(The NEWSWEEK Election Project was written by Evan Thomas with reporting from Peter Goldman, Eleanor Clift, Daren Briscoe, Nick Summers, Katie Connolly and Michael Hastings; Holly Bailey and Jonathan Darman also contributed intel.)

I. Obama's 'Certain Ambivalence'

Obama was something unusual in a politician: genuinely self-aware. In late May 2007, he had stumbled through a couple of early debates and was feeling uncertain about what he called his "uneven" performance. "Part of it is psychological," he told his aides. "I'm still wrapping my head around doing this in a way that I think the other candidates just aren't. There's a certain ambivalence in my character that I like about myself. It's part of what makes me a good writer, you know? It's not necessarily useful in a presidential campaign."

These candid remarks were taped at a debate-prep session at a law firm in Washington. The tape of Obama's back-and-forth with his advisers, provided to NEWSWEEK by an attendee, is a remarkably frank and revealing record of what the candidate was really thinking when he took the stage with his opponents.

On the tape, after Obama's rueful remark about the mixed blessings of his detached nature, there is cross talk and laughter, and then Axelrod cracks, "You can save that for your next memoir."

Obama continues: "When you have to be cheerful all the time and try to perform and act like [the tape is unclear; Obama appears to be poking fun at his opponents], I'm sure that some of it has to do with nerves or anxiety and not having done this before, I'm sure. And in my own head, you know, there's—I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. When you're going into something thinking, 'This is not my best …' I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' Instead of being appropriately [the tape is garbled]. So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f–––ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT AS RACIAL BARRIER FALLS
(Adam Nagourney, New York Times)
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive. The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago... To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago. Mr. McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly hostile political environment, weighted down with the baggage left to him by President Bush and an economic collapse that took place in the middle of the general election campaign.

A NEW WORLD ORDER
(John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, Politico)
Nov. 4, 2008, was the day when American politics shifted on its axis. The ascent of an African-American to the presidency — a victory by a 47-year-old man who was born when segregation was still the law of the land across much of this nation — is a moment so powerful and so obvious that its symbolism needs no commentary. But it was the reality of power, not the symbolism, that changed Tuesday night in ways more profound than meet the eye. The rout of the Republican Party, and the accompanying gains by Democrats in Congress, mean that Barack Obama will assume office with vastly more influence in the nation’s capital than most of his recent predecessors have wielded. The only exceptions suggest the magnitude of the moment. Power flowed in unprecedented ways to George W. Bush in the year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It flowed likewise to Lyndon B. Johnson after his landslide in 1964. Beyond those fleeting moments, every president for more than two generations has confronted divided government or hobbling internal divisions within his own party. 

OBAMA'S TRANSCENDENCE BEYOND RACE
(Ron Fournier, Associated Press)
The elevation of Barack Obama to the White House is a transcendent moment, for what this election says about a nation where blacks were once considered property. And that might be the least of it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. At odd intervals — 1800, 1860, 1932, 1980 — the nation reaches a "pivot point," an election that draws the line between the past and the future. And 2008 appears to be just such a line in the shifting sands of our convulsive times. Reagan-style conservative supremacy? Over. The era of baby boomer leadership? Waning. And maybe, just maybe, something new has arrived: a post-partisan approach to governing, founded on the Obama Coalition, fueled by young and minority voters, powered by the 21st century technologies that helped turn a first-term senator from Illinois into a historic lodestone. From the beginning, Obama had his sights on something bigger than the "50 percent plus one" approach championed by Karl Rove. He wanted a larger statement.

HARD CHOICES AND CHALLENGES FOLLOW TRIUMPH
(Dan Balz, Washington Post)
After a victory of historic significance, Barack Obama will inherit problems of historic proportions. Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated at the depths of the Great Depression in 1933 has a new president been confronted with the challenges Obama will face as he starts his presidency. At home, Obama must revive an economy experiencing some of the worst shocks in more than half a century. Abroad, he has pledged to end the war in Iraq and defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He ran on a platform to change the country and its politics. Now he must begin to spell out exactly how. Obama's winning percentage appears likely to be the largest of any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide and makes him the first since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to garner more than 50.1 percent. Like Johnson, he will govern with sizable congressional majorities... But with those advantages come hard choices. Among them will be deciding how much he owes his victory to a popular rejection of President Bush and the Republicans and how much it represents an embrace of Democratic governance. Interpreting his mandate will be only one of several critical decisions Obama must make as he prepares to assume the presidency. Others include transforming his campaign promises on taxes, health care, energy and education into a set of legislative priorities for his first two years in office.

By Jessica Bennett

Outside the Apollo Theater on Harlem's 125th Street, chants of "Obama U-S-A" echo through subway tunnels and roadways as the final words of the next president's speech--that familiar "Yes We Can"--broadcast through open windows and car radios. To describe the scene here almost sounds like a Lifetime special, except it is real: streets have been blocked off, while black, white, Latino, young, old celebrate peacefully, in multiple languages and urban dialects. "I honestly never thought I'd see this day," says Roland Jackson, a lifelong Harlem native who moved to Indiana six months ago, but came back today to vote. "It's the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream," says Richard Washington, 45. "Now we have a new legacy."

Beside me, two friends embrace--"change, man, change," one says, patting the back of his friend. "I'm going to cry," says Elana King, a 36-year-old Harlem native. "Not only is this historic because its a black man, but it's the first time we feel like we truly affected change."  

Amid the clanging of pots and pans, the constant blare of car horns and scattered showers from a broken fire hydrant shooting water into the air off Broadway, camera phones are almost as abundant as the Obama paraphernalia: home-made posters, self-designed T-shirts, stickers, flyers and  fountains of confetti. "Its like Mardi  Gras," says a woman.

Just a lot more historic.

America has spoken. Now, before 240,000 supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, our new president takes his turn. Here's Barack Obama's 2008 presidential acceptance speech, as prepared for delivery:

(Morry Gash / AP)

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.  

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. 

McCain's concession speech from the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Ariz. was everything it had to be--a generous, gracious reminder that when the campaign comes to a close what really matters is our shared enterprise as Americans. It was easy to forget in the heat of battle, but no one does bipartisanship better.

"Sen. Obama and I argued our differences, and he has prevailed," McCain said. "No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country. I pledge tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us with the many challenges we face. Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans... and believe me when I say: no association has ever meant more to me than that.  Though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours."

At that, McCain's supporters shouted in protest. Ultimately, they were right. The blame belongs not to McCain but to Obama, the better candidate--and, in part, President George W. Bush. This year, the senator from Arizona faced impossible odds, and struggled to overcome them however he could. But it wasn't to be.

He'll survive the loss. He's survived far worse.

Over on Race to the Finish, Howard Fineman writes on the McCain camp's mood:

We’ve just called Ohio and New Mexico for Sen. Barack Obama, which means that it’s all but over. But that is no news to Sen. John McCain and his campaign, which knew from the start that it was not going to be their night.

I know that because I talked to Mark Salter, McCain’s closest, most loyal and longest-serving aide. I reached him at about 7 p.m. Eastern time, before any states had been called. I couldn’t see him, of course, but he sounded to me as if he’d been run over by a truck-or as if he had just been having a good try at the end of a long year.

McCain and his inner circle were hunkered down at the old Biltmore in downtown Phoenix-in the ironically but appropriately named Goldwater Suite.

READ THE FULL POST HERE

McCain called Obama at 11 p.m. Eastern. What they said, courtesy of Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs:

Senator Obama thanked Senator McCain for his graciousness and said he had waged a tough race. Senator Obama told Senator McCain he was consistently someone who has showed class and honor during this campaign as he has during his entire life in public service.

Senator Obama said he was eager to sit down and talk about how the two of them can work together--Obama said to move this country forward "I need your help, you're a leader on so many important issues."

By Suzanne Smalley

At the Marriott Hotel in Glen Allen, Virginia, a despondent crowd watched Fox News call Pennsylvania and then Ohio for Senator Barack Obama. But it wasn't until Fox called Virginia for Obama at around 10:45 p.m.-- with 91 percent of precincts reporting and just 50,000 votes separating the candidates -- that the remaining two dozen or so people at the state Republican Party's "victory" celebration expressed the full extent of their disappointment. "I'm devastated," said Carl Woo, a 54-year-old CPA from Richmond. Woo's friend, a furniture store owner named Ed Barden, tried to reassure him. "It's not over yet," Barden said. "But the patient's on life support," a dejected Woo replied.

While Barden still held out hope, the so-called celebration inside this suburban Richmond hotel ballroom hadn't felt like a party since 9 p.m., when the extremely popular local congressman, Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, won his race for Virginia's 7th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cantor blamed the Republican free fall on a terrible environment for Republicans and the tremendous resource advantage Obama held over Senator John McCain. "This was a terribly, teribly challenging environment for anyone to run for office in and we delivered because you delivered in the 7th district," Cantor said in his acceptance speech.

Later, in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Cantor, perhaps the biggest rising star in the Republican Party, added: "One of the things that I think has struck people as kind of odd is that all of a sudden you hear Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and Chuck Schumer talking about the middle class as if the Democrats own the middle class issue. Frankly, the middle class is, really was, our playing field. That’s how Ronald Reagan came into power, that’s how Newt Gingrich came into power, is to stick up for the working families. So we’ve got to get back in the mode of being able to talk to people about things that they care about, offering up solutions that are based on our conservative principles. I think there's all kinds of explanations for this year, obviously. Again, the resources obviously played a part in this election…If nothing else, we couldn’t get the message out. Look, Barack Obama ran as a conservative. He's talking about giving a tax cut, in his language, in his parlance, to 95 percent of the people of this country. That’s a conservative message."

It's a wrap.

Whatever your political affiliation, whomever you supported... I think we can all come together at this moment, as Americans, and agree that the election of the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother--an African-American--represents a turning point in the long, imperfect narrative of our nation. Tomorrow we can return to bickering; if we didn't, we wouldn't be Americans. But tonight, let's pause and celebrate--and savor the rare feeling of living through history, together.

Everything just changed. Here's hoping that President Obama is equal to the moment.

With 91 precincts reporting, both FOX News and the Associated Press call Virginia for Barack Obama.

How'd he do it? By slicing into the Bush margins downstate and running up big leads in the heavily populated, transplant-rich ring of suburban counties around Washington D.C.--Arlington (67-32), Loudoun (53-47), Fairfax (59-41) and Prince William (55-44). To see how much has changed in four years, just look at the Bush-Kerry splits from the last time around: 46-54 in Fairfax, 56-44 in Loudoun and 53-47 in Prince William. That's the whole story right there.

Obama's electoral vote total now stands at 220. When the polls close at 11:00 p.m. Eastern in California, the networks will call the race--and Barack Obama will officially be the president-elect of the United States of America.

The networks won't call it for awhile. The winner won't reach 270 for another hour or two. But it just became pretty much impossible for John McCain to win the 2008 election.

Why? One word. Ohio.

In case you missed it, the networks just called it for (drum roll, please) Barack Obama.

The math is simple. With no (plausible) blue states left for McCain to pick up, his best-case scenario was matching George W. Bush's 2004 total of 286 electoral votes. Subtract the Buckeye State's 20 EVs--and New Mexico's five (it was also called around 9:30)--and he's at 261. There simply aren't enough winnable electoral votes on the table to lift McCain to 270. And we haven't even received the final results from Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Indiana and North Carolina--all plausible (some probable) Obama pickups.

So how did Obama do it?  By winning voters who are worried about economic conditions--a full 86 percent of the electorate--by 12 points. By outperforming Kerry's 68 percent margin among black voters by a shocking 27 points. By beating McCain among every age group under 65--after Kerry lost every age group over 30. By clobbering McCain 60-37 among voters making under $50,000 and tying him among those making over $50K; Kerry, for the record, won the first group 58-42 and lost the latter group by a massive 58-42 margin. Obama even won whites making under $50K. It was, simply put, a commanding performance--the product of campaigning in 18 different counties versus Kerry's nine, opening twice the number of field offices and dispatching three times the number of staffers. Money matters, and some combustible combination of Obama's wealth and Ohioans' worries made all the difference.

A McCain aide just told Marc Ambinder, "at this point, we need a miracle." At this point, I'm not even sure that would do it.

Fact is, miracles don't trump math. And John McCain - Ohio = President Obama. All that's left to figure out is the size of his victory.

It's official.

As polls close at 9:00 p.m., the networks call Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin for Barack Obama. This means that John McCain, who has already lost in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania will not--repeat will not--add to George W. Bush's 2004 electoral vote total of 286.

To win, the Republican has to hope that Obama either a) doesn't win any Bush states or b) wins Bush states worth less 16 electoral votes. A few examples: Nevada plus Iowa; New Mexico plus Colorado; Virginia or Indiana--and nowhere else. If Obama wins Ohio or Florida, it's over.

The Sunshine State, of course, is still too close to call. Obama currently leads 51-48 with 50 percent reporting; he's outperforming Kerry in key Bush districts 9and the key Kerry districts on the southeastern coast have yet to report). What's more, there's an early sign in the Florida exit polls that McCain may be in trouble--if not down south, then out west.After Bush won 56 percent of Florida's Hispanic vote in 2004, Obama carried the group tonight, 55-44. This bodes extremely well for the Illinois senator's chances in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

With a quarter of precincts reporting, NBC News calls Georgia for John McCain. No surprise there--the Peach State was probably the reachiest of Barack Obama's reaches. The Democrat tried to close 2004's double-digit gap by increasing the black vote as a share of the electorate to 30 percent (up five since 2004), but it wasn't enough in a state where whites--who chose McCain 73-25--made up 65 percent of the voters.

Needless to say, Georgia wasn't make or break for Obama. Chicago was expecting to win Iowa, New Mexico Colorado, Virginia, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina before the Peach State (in that order)--and all of those states are still up in the air.

The AP calls New Hampshire the second the polls close. Despite showing massive Obama leads in recent days, the Granite State was always considered McCain's second-best pick-up possibility. Without it, the math looks particularly dire for McCain. At this point, he can only afford to lose 16 of Bush's 286 electoral votes from 2004. That means that if he loses Florida or Ohio, he's toast. Same goes for Virginia or Indiana plus either Iowa or Colorado. Not to mention Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Missouri or Georgia.

Above all, the speed of the N.H. call does not bode well for the Republican.

According to the CBS exit polls, African American turnout in the Peach State is up five points as a share of the electorate since 2004.

Why is that important? 

Because it means that black voters will comprise 30 percent of the electorate there this year. That's the typically considered the magic number for Obama--the point at which flipping Georgia, which twice voted for George W. Bush by double-digit margins, becomes a definite possibility.

Right now, McCain is leading 63-36 with four percent of precincts reporting. Among the outstanding areas, however, is Obama-friendly Atlanta. So stay tuned.

John McCain's plan to win tonight? Swipe Pennsylvania.

Alas, it was not to be. At 8:00 on the dot--the moment the polls closed--the networks called the Keystone State for Obama.

Without it, McCain now needs to win Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Indiana. If he loses any one of those states, his path to 270 becomes prohibitively steep. If he wins them, he still needs to hold onto the Western states of Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa and Nevada, where Obama has been polling much better than in the east.

Stay tuned...

Hey everyone,

For the next hour, veteran Democratic consultant Joe Trippi and I will be answering your questions... live and uncensored. Click here to participate.

Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: Transcript after the jump...

The first results of the 2008 election are trickling in... from Vigo County, Indiana.

That might sound kind of random. But the interesting thing is, Vigo County--home of Terra Haute--has for decades most closely matched the national vote for president of any county in the country. As the Indianapolis Star reported earlier this week, "only six counties in the nation have voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1960--[and] of those six, Vigo County, which is about 70 miles southwest of Indianapolis, has voted closest to the national margin." In 2004, for example, Vigo voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry 53 percent to 46 percent--only a point or two off the final margin. 

So what are the early 2008 returns showing?

With 69 percent of precincts reporting, Barack Obama is beating John McCain in Vigo County--57 to 42. That 15-point margin will likely close as more ballots are counted, and the senator still needs to drive up big margins around Gary and Indianapolis to win the Hoosier State. But if Obama retains even a fraction of his current lead, history says this will be a very good night for the Democratic nominee.

I'll update as more results come in...

The final round of state and national polling is in. It shows Barack Obama widening his average overall lead to 7.6 percent--a 2.5-percent increase from two weeks ago--and topping 52 percent nationwide. In the Electoral College, Obama is ahead by more than five points (again, on average) in enough states to reach 278 electoral votes; include the states where he leads by less--Florida, Virginia and Ohio--and that tally expands to 338. One hundred and eleven national polls have been taken since mid-September--and John McCain hasn't led in a single one of them. The prediction whizzes at FiveThirtyEight--who base their projections on polls--give the Arizona senator a 1.1 percent chance of victory?

But despite these statistical storm clouds, McCainiacs are still insisting that their man could win. Part of this, of course, is pure, unadulterated spin; no campaign admits it's going to lose before the polls close on Election Day. But there's also a glimmer of truth beneath the BS. The question for campaign reporters like me--and anxious voters of all political stripes--is whether there's enough reality here to actually upend the contest.

Basically, the McCain camp has been forced in the final days of this race to argue that everything we think we know--thanks, for the most part, to the incessant flood of polls--is wrong. In a memo released to reporters late last week, campaign pollster Bill McInturff--a reliable, no-nonsense guy--presented two poll-based pathways to a McCain victory. The first relied on undecideds. In this scenario, the vast majority of voters who persisted in telling pollsters until the last possible minute that they weren't sure which candidate they'd select on Election Day would, in the end, break overwhelmingly for McCain, propelling him past Obama and into the White House. "Given their demographics"--older, whiter, poorer Republicans, according to McInturff--"it is my sense these voters WILL vote in this election and WILL break decisively in our direction," he wrote. As a result, McCain's support would skyrocket--and Obama's would hold steady. Not particularly complicated.

McInturff's second pro-McCain scenario is a little craftier. That's because it relies not on voters who refused to commit but on those who "refused to even respond."  As Pollster's Mark Blumenthal recently reported, "even the most rigorous national surveys struggle to achieve response rates over 30 percent"; the other 70 percent, meanwhile, hung up without participating. The question McInturff raised in his memo was, What if those who refused to be interviewed have very different political views----read: views far less favorable to Obama--than those who agreed to participate? He had reason to suspect that the answer was yes. In 1997, the Pew Research Center conducted an experiment that found "reluctant respondents significantly less sympathetic than amenable respondents toward African-Americans." Without these hard-to-reach anti-Obamans in the respondent poll, McInturff's thinking went, our national surveys would naturally skew toward the Democrat. But if they show up on Election Day, McCain would get a big--and potentially decisive--boost.

In other words, McInturff was claiming that McCain's two potential paths to victory were a) the polls are incomplete or b) they're completely and utterly inaccurate (mainly because they don't account for a bunch of anti-Obama voters who refuse to respond).

So what's the reality here? 

Let's deal with "undecideds" first. Simply put, it's impossible to image that they will decide this race. The reasons are pretty clear. First, Obama has topped 50 percent in 28 out of the last national 29 polls, including all of the last 19; he averages 52.1 percent support overall. What's more, he crosses the magic 50-percent barrier in enough states (including Virginia) to earn him 291 electoral votes--21 more than the number necessary for victory. As a result, McCain could win over every single undecided voter--and he still wouldn't win the race. Never mind the fact that, far from breaking 100 percent for McCain, undecideds have split evenly between the two candidates in the final days of the race, with both the Democrat and the Republican's number ticking up two percent since late last week. Or that this "taking of sides" has left only two to three percent of the electorate undecided heading into Election Day--far too small a number to erase a lead as large as Obama's.

As for the "refused to respond" brigades... well, they could conceivably still boost McCain. Earlier this week, Andrew Kohut, president of Pew, told Blumenthal that he's "always had a harder time completing interviews with a cohort of older, white, less well-educated respondents who typically demonstrate less tolerance on race-related questions." As a result, Pew"identifies a demographic cohort that should be 29 percent of adults, but typically represents 20 to 25 percent of adults in their unweighted samples. While they always weight this group up to its appropriate level, he could not rule out the possibility that the missing respondents may be those with less racial tolerance, as they were in Pew's 1997 study." In other words, it's possible that four to nine percent of the 2008 electorate will be exactly the sort of hard-to-reach anti-Obamans who refused to participate in the vast majority of pre-election poilling. Which would undoubtedly give McCain a bump.

Would the bump be big enough to install McCain in the Oval Office? Probably not. As Blumenthal reports, "Kohut remains uncertain about how much of problem these harder-to-reach respondents might be, he considers it something 'small to worry about' that might mean at most a percentage point or two in the results"--a boost that Obama's anticipated gains among new registrants and cell-phone users would probably cancel out. That said, what if that the "refused to respond" effect is larger in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and (especially) Pennsylvania than it is nationally--large enough, even, to swing those states in McCain's direction? At this point, it's a near-impossibility. But it may be McCain's only hope.

Bottom line: if you wake up tomorrow to the phrase "President McCain" plastered across the top of your local paper, blame the "refused to respond" brigades. And look for the headline "Nation's Pollsters Commit Mass Suicide" somewhere nearby.

(NB: Even the McCain folks agree that the Bradley Effect won't be a factor this year. In fact, race may help Obama more than it hurts him. I discussed why here.)

If that's not enough detail for you, be sure to check out Nate Silver's exclusive NEWSWEEK timeline of "what to watch for" this evening. Here's a sneak peek:

6 PM EST. Polls close in portions of Indiana and Kentucky.

Traditionally, these are the first states to get called by the networks, spotting the Republicans a quick 19 points in the Electoral College. This year, however, is liable to be a little bit different. Indiana is far more competitive than usual, and is probably the state with the greatest disparity in ground games: the Obama campaign has 42 field offices open there, whereas McCain neglected the state entirely until recently.

The responsible thing to do would be for the networks to hold off until at least 7 PM to project Indiana, when polls have closed in Gary and the northwestern part of the state just across the border from Chicago—where Obama hopes to rack up huge margins among black and working-class voters. If for some reason the state is called before 7 PM for John McCain, that probably means we're in for a long night. If, on the other hand, the state is called for Obama in the first hour after the polls close, that could indicate that the force of Obama's field operation has been underestimated, and that McCain is in for a catastrophically poor evening. (Speaking of which, Indiana's equivalent on the Senate side of things might in fact be Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell remains the favorite but where he could be vulnerable in the event of an anti-incumbent wave.)

7 PM EST. Polls close in Virginia and Georgia, as well as most of Florida and most of New Hampshire.

Virginia, for my money, is the most important state in this election. If John McCain loses it, his path to victory is exceptionally narrow—he would need to pull out an upset in Pennsylvania, while holding on to Florida and Ohio, and avoiding a sweep out West. Barack Obama has considerably more ways to win without Virginia, but a failure to close out the state would suggest at best a more circuitous route to victory. As Obama remains about five points ahead in most polls of Virginia, what we're really looking for is a quick call on anything before 8 PM that would indicate that the map has indeed changed from 2004, and not in McCain's favor.

You can read the rest here.  

By Sarah Kliff

Early morning voting is well underway on the East Coast—and so are the voting snafus. As of 10 a.m. Eastern, the Election Protection Hotline had received 27,000 calls from voters who have had trouble at the polls. We don't know whether there will be another Florida or Ohio this year, but at a mid-morning Election Protection Briefing, the Hotline's legal committee summed up the problem spots in progress.  Here's what the voting experts are watching:

Virginia and Pennsylvania – voters from these two battlegrounds have, so far, reported the highest number of problems, so these are the two states that the Election Protection Hotline folks are most concerned about. In Virginia, Voting Rights Project Director Jon Greenbaum reports a wide variety of issues: polls opening late, machines breaking down, ballot shortages. There's no geographic center; the problems seem to be scattered across the state. "These problems are continuing to flow in," says Greenbaum. "We got a number of these calls very early, but even in the last hour we're getting continuing problems from Virginia."  The Voting Rights Project is in talks with government officials in Richmond to address these problems.

Over in the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have had a number of broken voting machines. That's been leading to long lines and even some giving up.  In Pennsylvania, there's a statewide requirement for paper ballots, so things are a bit smoother–although some polling places didn't have emergency ballots and lines began to grow.

Florida: There are reports from about two dozen polling locations across the Sunshine State – mainly in key I-4 Corridor county Hillsborough, home of Tampa– of broken optical scan machines. No surprise there: when the state required all counties to switch to optical scan ballots, voting experts foresaw major problems as many would have to adjust to a new technology in an election with overwhelming turnout.

Taking a step back, Greenbaum says the problems are about what they expected—not catastrophic, but not particularly smooth. "The infrastructure of our election isn't equipped to handle this kind of turnout," says Greenbaum. "Unfortunately, this is the same story you'll hear from us in 2010 and 2012."

The Voting Protection Hotline will host another briefing at 3:30 p.m. today, so stay tuned for an update around then.

As part of NEWSWEEK's continuing "Press Box" series, here's my take on Barack Obama's best and worst campaign decisions:

As part of NEWSWEEK's continuing "Press Box" series, here's my take on John McCain's best and worst campaign decisions. (Hint: they're one and the same.)

Agree? Disagree? I'd love to hear your thoughts below.

I left the house to vote at 6:30 this morning--and here's what greeted me at the corner of St. John's and Sixth Ave. in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "I've been voting here for 20 years," one guy told me. "Usually, you just walk right in." Another fellow--slightly older--interrupted. "I've been voting here for 30 years," he added. "Never seen anything like this."

Now, my neighborhood--a patchwork of aging Bobos, deeply-rooted African-Americans, young creative types, yupster families and lots and lots of lesbians--is probably the furthest thing from a bellwether in the entire country. But the hour-long line, which covered an entire city block, was probably a good sign for Obama. If he can turn 'em out in a 'hood as safe as Park Slope--and yes, the crowd was probably 99 percent Democratic--I imagine he'll fare pretty well in the places where he's actually making an effort.

Developing, as they say.

Oh, and please let me know below what you're seeing and hearing out there. I'll post the most interesting anecdotes as they come in...

Remember that nice, civic-minded advertisement that debuted during "Saturday Night Live" and shot to viral fame on YouTube? The one where you get free coffee for telling your chipper barista that you just voted? Well, the offer may not be exactly legal.

Election laws prevent individuals and organizations from offering monetary incentives to get people to the polls, keeping partisan hacks from bribing potential voters likely to swing their way. Unfortunately for national chains like Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Ben & Jerry's and sex-toys emporium Babeland, the definition of "monetary incentive" also includes offers of free stuff like coffee, donuts, ice cream, and, um, a certain sleeve-like contraption called "The Maverick."

Would anyone actually pursue legal action against such altruistic institutions? Probably not. According to D.C.-based election law expert Kenneth Gross, the offers were neither partisan nor overly generous nor particularly concerned with verifying that customers actually cast votes, all of which makes the undertaking pretty benign in the legal scheme of things. "With or without a tall cup of coffee, I doubt any prosecutor will lose any sleep over this," he said.

Still, just to be on the safe side, the companies have backtracked; free stuff will now be on offer for everyone, whether or not they cast their ballots. Starbucks didn't return NEWSWEEK's phone call on Monday, but the message came through loud and clear via Twitter late last night: Oops.

"IMPORTANT: To ensure that we are in compliance with election law, we are extending our offer to all customers who request a tall brewed drip."

Ain't democracy grand? Perhaps, although Gross has a more sobering take on the situation. "If everyone takes these companies up on their giveaways, I hope the next president has a heck of a health plan to offer the American people."

Seen other fun stuff on offer for election day? Let us know and we'll give you a shoutout  on our new reader feedback blog, Readback. 

Update: Starbucks did get back to us with their new statement after catching this post:  "We’ve been excited by the number of positive responses received about our free coffee offer. To ensure we are in compliance with election law, we are extending our offer to all customers who request a tall brewed coffee. We’re pleased to honor our commitment to communities on this important Election Day. We hope there is a record turnout on Tuesday and look forward to celebrating with our customers over a great cup of coffee."

(Alex Brandon / AP)

Obama: You guys have been gracious, outstanding, reasonably easy for our crack team here and you know whatever happens tomorrow it’s extraordinary you guys have shared this process with us and I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you.
 
Kathy Kiely: How are you feeling Senator?
 
Obama: I am not going to come back and answer any questions here, Kathy.  Even though you can feel free to keep your tape recorders on. Get some sleep starting on Wednesday.
 
Reporter:  I’m sorry about your Grandmother.
 
Obama: I know you guys have sent a lot of emails individually, collectively. It is very gracious. Embeds—they have been there for the start. Thank you guys, thank you guys.
 
(Walks to the back of the plane)
 
Obama: This is finally starting to look like the original plane.  It took a while to get that old feeling again. Is everyone giving [NEWSWEEK's Richard] Wolffe a sufficiently hard time about being a feature on Saturday Night Live?
 
Reporter: Scout—It's her birthday you know.
 
Obama: Let me give you a birthday kiss. OK guys, let's go home. It will be fun to see how the story ends.

Amen.
 

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories. NOW GO VOTE!

AFTER EPIC CAMPAIGN, VOTERS GO TO THE POLLS
(Adam Nagourney, New York Times)
The 2008 race for the White House that comes to an end on Tuesday fundamentally upended the way presidential campaigns are fought in this country, a legacy that has almost been lost with all the attention being paid to the battle between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. It has rewritten the rules on how to reach voters, raise money, organize supporters, manage the news media, track and mold public opinion, and wage — and withstand — political attacks, including many carried by blogs that did not exist four years ago. It has challenged the consensus view of the American electoral battleground, suggesting that Democrats can at a minimum be competitive in states and regions that had long been Republican strongholds. The size and makeup of the electorate could be changed because of efforts by Democrats to register and turn out new black, Hispanic and young voters. This shift may have long-lasting ramifications for what the parties do to build enduring coalitions, especially if intensive and technologically-driven voter turnout programs succeed in getting more people to the polls. Mr. McCain’s advisers expect a record-shattering turnout of 130 million people, many being brought into the political process for the first time.

POLLS SHOW OBAMA WITH A CLEAR ADVANTAGE
(Dan Balz, Washington Post)
State and national polls released yesterday underscored the steep hill McCain must climb in the final hours to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Burdened by President Bush's unpopularity and an economic crisis that redrew the race in September in Obama's favor, the senator from Arizona sprinted through a series of critical states yesterday -- all but one of which Bush carried four years ago -- exhorting his supporters to help him defy the odds. Obama concentrated on Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, appealing to supporters to produce a huge turnout in those battlegrounds as he sought to checkmate his rival by keeping alive as many options as possible for winning an electoral college majority. The strategy, laid down in the summer at the beginning of the general election, has proved successful in the late stages of the race and require McCain to win virtually every state where the polls are close to deny Obama a victory.

THE CURTAIN FINALLY FALLS
(Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin, Politico)
They should, by all rights, have entered Election Day with their moods matching the polls: Barack Obama elated by his seemingly substantial lead and large crowds, John McCain demoralized by the specter of defeat and meager turnout. But in the final hours of a campaign that has seldom gone according to script, the candidates' moods and their campaigns' demeanor – quite fittingly - didn't follow the expectations. Obama seemed almost unsteady amid the emotional barrage of the end of the campaign and his grandmother’s death, while his aides held fast to solid, positive early voting numbers with a mood one Chicago staffer described as "cautiously nauseous." A hoarse McCain and his top aides and advisers, clinging to the far weaker evidence of favored polls, evidenced an upbeat, even jaunty attitude through a grueling final day of airport hangar rallies that took them through seven states in just over 24 hours.

NEW ECONOMIC ILLS WILL FORCE WINNER'S HAND
(Bob Davis, Jonathan Weisman and Timothy Aeppel, Wall Street Journal)
Few economists predict the world is in for a repeat of the 1930s. But the deepening problems -- rising joblessness and home foreclosures, falling consumer spending and tight credit -- are prompting calls from businesses and Congress for quick action by the next president to clarify, and begin working on, his economic agenda. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) says the president-elect should start by picking his Treasury secretary and economic team within days. With Congress planning a session this month to push through a second economic-stimulus package and discuss remaking the nation's financial system, lawmakers will look for direction from the future president. Mr. Dodd said he will bring the next White House team into the regulatory talks... Both campaigns declined to comment on any specific post-election plans. However, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would likely come under pressure to assure investors that he won't increase income taxes on the wealthy during a recession -- as he hinted during the campaign -- or boost capital-gains taxes during a market slump. For Republican Sen. John McCain, one challenge would be explaining how he'd work with a Democratic Congress after a bitter presidential battle.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

(Cheryl Senter / AP) 

The polls opened shortly after midnight in the tiny, isolated village in northeastern New Hampshire that has cast the first presidential ballots in every election since 1960. A few minutes later, the voting was done. In the end, fifteen locals had chosen for Barack Obama--and six had sided with John McCain.

Dixville Notch isn't a bellwether--nationally or statewide. But the results may have some significance. The town had consistently leaned Republican, with President Bush capturing 80 percent of the vote in 2000 (21 to five) and 73 percent four years later (19 to six). All told, Obama made a small bit of history this morning, becoming the first Democrat since 1968 to triumph in the eager Granite State hamlet. A sign that he'll win the White House? Perhaps. Then again, the last Dem who took Dixville Notch was Hubert Humphrey. And we all know how that turned out.

Either way, welcome to Election Day 2008. What a long, strange trip it's been.

Barack Obama's 86-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died from cancer only ten days after the candidate put his campaign on hold to visit her in Hawaii--and only one day before he stands for election to the presidency of the United States. She was, in large part, the woman who raised him--and his last living forebear. Here's the statement from Obama and his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng:

It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer.  She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.  She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances.  She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring.  Our debt to her is beyond measure. 

Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time.  It brought our grandmother and us great comfort.  Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer.

UPDATE: Eli Sanders reports that Mrs. Dunham's vote will, in fact, count. She may not have lived to see her grandson elected president. But at least she had the chance to contribute to his historic candidacy:

Ms. Dunham’s absentee mail ballot was received and reviewed under the Hawaii standards for processing absentee mail ballots… She was alive at that time. Her ballot will be opened tomorrow, and it will be counted in the same way that all absentee voters would be treated under our law.
 

November: it's the new October.

In a normal election year, the 10th month is the time for surprises--that is, the last-minute slips, blips and/or cataclysmic events with the greatest potential, by virtue of their last-minuteness, to influence the election's outcome. In 2004, for example, Osama bin Laden got his videotape on; four years earlier, reports surfaced that Dubya had once been arrested for drunk driving. Both were said to rock the vote.

But this year, October came to close without any real scandals, kerfuffles, farragoes or to-dos. At first, we here at Stumper headquarters took this as a sign that the home stretch would be unusually quiet. But that wasn't quite right. Instead, the fates--and/or the oppo researchers in Chicago and Crystal City--were simply waiting until November to shock us.

Unfortunately, they appear to have had a pretty good reason for delaying: their surprises aren't all that surprising. Here's our guide to the disappointing eleventh-hour efforts to sway undecideds.

I. Auntie Z!

Story: Zeituni Onyango, the Kenyan half-sister of Obama's late father, has been living illegally in Boston public housing since an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago.

Desired Effect: Rally the rabid anti-immigration right to rise up against Obama for "being related to" a lawbreaking alien; revive subliminal fears of Obama's "otherness"; and/or convince the American people that the candidate is a heartless nephew (and therefore would be a heartless president). Reinforced with a third-party push poll in Virginia.

Actual Effect: Nil. For starters, the Lou Dobbs brigades--i.e., the folks most likely to get fired up over the words "illegal immigrant" with little concern for context--weren't voting for Obama anyway. As for independents--i.e., the people McCain actually needs to win over--they won't punish Obama for being personally affected by such complicated problem. Especially when he had no knowledge of Onyango's status--and has said that "if she is violating laws, those laws have to be obeyed." Putting a poor, middle-aged human face on the immigration issue isn't the way to attract voters.

II. Cheney Endorses!

Story: Vice President Dick Cheney praises this year's--gasp!--Republican presidential candidate while campaigning in his home state of Wyoming, saying "I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Sen. John McCain." Obama, in turn, immediately characterizes Cheney's routine remark as an "endorsement" and releases a juvenile ad taunting his rival for receiving it. "That endorsement didn't come easy," Obama says. "Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it."

Desired Effect: More of the same, 90 percent, Bush-Cheney policies, four more years, yadda yadda yadda.

Actual Effect: Did anyone expect Cheney to "endorse" a candidate not named "John McCain"--especially after first giving his support to the Arizona senator last spring? Didn't think so.

III. Wright Returns!

Story: After months of McCain refusing to "go there," third-party groups and state Republican parties have begun to air ads in Florida and Pennsylvania (and on the cable-news networks) attacking Obama for his long relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. "Wright was his mentor, adviser and close friend," the announcer intones. "For 20 years Obama never complained--until he ran for president." 

Desired Effect: Remind voters that Obama's pastor said some pretty offensive stuff; revive subliminal fears of Obama's "otherness" (again).

Actual Effect: Might affect voters suffering from short-term memory loss. But Noam Scheiber ably explains why it won't work with the folks McCain's relying on to propel him to victory in the Keystone State: "A huge number of ... Democrats and unaffiliateds either voted in April's primary or thought about doing so, meaning they're already familiar with Jeremiah Wright (who made more than a cameo in the run-up). Which is to say, Wright's probably baked in the cake for most of these people; the Democrats and independents who tell pollsters they support Obama are supporting him despite Wright, not because they're unaware of him. So McCain's unlikely to win many of them via last-minute introductions." 

IV. Obama Bankrupts Big Coal!

Story: The Drudge Report, Fox News and the McCain campaign are heavily hyping a 10-month-old audiotape of Obama speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle about his plan to limit carbon emissions. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can," Obama says. "It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.” Robo-calls have already cropped up in Pennsylvania and Ohio and both McCain and Sarah Palin have slammed Obama on the stump.

Desired Effect: Convince economically stressed voters in coal-producing states like West Virginia (leaning McCain), Ohio (tossup) and Pennsylvania (leaning Obama, and critical to the McCain campaign) that Obama wants to put them out of work.

Actual Effect: Too little, too late. Palin has claimed that the Chronicle suppressed the interview, but it's actually been available on the paper's Web site since January. So the whole "conspiracy" angle loses a little bit of its oomph. What's more, Obama was merely reinforcing his long-held support for a mandatory cap on carbon emissions--a view shared by none other than John McCain. In fact, when McCain bravely (and rightly) proposed a bill designed to limit greenhouse-gas emissions in 2005, his Ohio colleague Sen. George Voinovich took to the floor to argue that the plan would "put coal out of business" and cost thousands of jobs. McCain's response? That his plan "would involve some sacrifice on the part of the American people."

So to say that Obama wants to "bankrupt" the entire coal industry is inaccurate--unless you say that McCain wants to do the same thing. The fact is, both candidates favor a system that makes constructing new coal plants that lack “clean-coal technology”—i.e., carbon capture and sequestration technology—prohibitively expensive. But that doesn't mean the old coal plants--or jobs--disappear. As Obama put it later in the same interview, "this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion ... What we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon."

Where's Osama when you need him?

By Suzanne Smalley  

Sarah Palin knows the way to the hearts of conservative Ohioans. In Lakewood, an affluent bedroom community 10 minutes from downtown Cleveland, Palin on Monday married two of her favorite attacks into one anti-Obama soliloquy that framed the Illinois senator as a creature of San Francisco--a city as hated by Republican voters for its congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, as it is for being an overall bastion of liberalism. The crowd responded to Palin's enthusiastic attacks and promise of victory, at one point interrupting her to chant over and over, "We will win!"

Palin reminded the crowd of several hundred that San Francisco was the venue for Obama's remarks this spring that rural Americans cling to guns and religion because they are bitter. What a coincidence, then, that Obama was also in the City by the Bay when he disclosed that under a cap and trade plan he supports, polluters who disregard carbon emissions could "bankrupt" the coal industry. (Incidentally, John McCain also supports cap and trade, a program that would charge polluters for carbon emissions, giving companies financial incentives to reduce pollution). "There must be something about San Francisco," Palin said. "It's like a truth serum where when he's there he seems to be more candid. Remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the Klingons, all of us, I guess, you know holding onto religion and guns."

The linking of Obama's January remarks about the coal industry with his comments about bitter rural Americans at a San Francisco fundraiser this spring, represents a departure for Palin, whose speeches tend to be extremely repetitive. After Palin's new attack on Obama's comments about the coal industry back in January provided a much-needed jolt on Sunday, joking about San Francisco became the topic du jour on the press plane Monday. (Though Obama's comments about coal have been publicly available on the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle for more than nine months, they have only made their way onto conservative blogs in the part 48 hours, raising questions about the competence of McCain's opposition research department, among other things).

Palin has long featured San Francisco congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a favorite conservative target, in her stump speech. Rep. Barney Frank, one of the very few openly gay members in Congress, is also a favorite (even though he lives on the other side of the country, in Massachussetts), and mentions of both of them almost always generate boos. Monday was no different as Palin sought to emphasize what she sees as the dangers of one-party rule. "Barney Frank," Palin told the crowd in Lakewood, "according to him, the leadership, what's gonna happen, the first thing on the chopping block, one of the first things to go, will be one quarter of your U.S. defense budget. … Please let us not entrust all the powers of your federal government to the one-party rule of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid."

The only group on the receiving end of more bashing than San Francisco liberals was the media. As the press filed through the crowd in Jefferson City--the second stop in a six-city sprint that will take Palin to the swing states of Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado in less than 12 hours Monday--the taunting started with people telling reporters to try and be fair for a change. Minutes later, country singer Hank Williams took the stage and crooned, "Left-wing American media, always a close knit family," before going on to compliment Palin. The lyric that got the most laughs--and the biggest reaction from Palin had particular resonance given the attention that has been paid to Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. "If you mess with her cubs, she's gonna take off the gloves. That's an American female tradition!"

Ladies and gentlemen, we're now taking bets.

Electoral College totals. Popular vote percentages. Democratic pickups in the House and the Senate.

I'll post mine here (and add predictions from other New York Newsweekers as they come in). You post yours in the comments. Prize to be determined.

Without any further ado, the Stumper Electoral Map:

That's 371 electoral votes for Obama and 167 for McCain. I'll probably embarrass myself with Montana and North Dakota, but what the hell--you gotta spend money to make money, right? As far as the popular vote, I'm predicting 52 percent for Obama to 46 percent for McCain, with two percent going to third-party candidates. In the Senate, I'm anticipating 8 Democratic pickups; in the House, I'm going with 27. Which is basically just a wild guess.

Hit me with your best shot below.

UPDATE: The Newsweek staff predictions are in! Drumroll, please:

Lisa Miller, Religion Editor:
Obama 296
Popular vote: Obama 50.2, McCain 48
Senate: 54-46
House: Dems 251

Jonathan Darman, Senior Writer and Political Correspondent:
Obama 348, McCain 190
Popular vote: Obama 50.2; McCain 46.0
Senate: Dems 59, R 41
House Dems: +21

Jonathan Alter, Political Columnist:
Obama 333, McCain 205
53-44
Senate 59
House +27

Sarah Kliff, Nation Reporter:
Electoral vote count: Obama 349, McCain 189
Popular Vote: 52 percent Obama, 48 percent McCain
Senate Split:  Dems 58, GOP 42
House: Dems pick up 28

Dan Klaidman, Managing Editor:
Obama -- 347, McCain -- 191
Obama 51.8 percent, McCain 47 percent
House: Dems pick up 24
Senate: Dems pick up 7 senate seats for a total of 58

By Sarah Kliff

There's an abundance of McCain and Obama themed cookies, ice creams and cakes available for order on the Internet. But try and find anything more substantive than dessert and you come up pretty short-handed. So last night, looking to fill that hole, I invited a dozen friends to take their best shot at summing up two years of a historic campaign in one potluck dinner. The requirements: every dish had to say something about the election, the candidates or a particularly memorable campaign moment.

The guests did not disappoint. The dinner, in fact, served as something of a campaign retrospective. Some--like my roommate, who baked Baracklava--played off the candidates' names. Many revived classic campaign one-liners: Pigs (in a blanket) with (ketchup) Lipstick; ‘I Can See Russia' Borscht; and ‘Drill Baby' Bundt Cake, which was covered in a barrel of oil (chocolate sauce).

Others used the opportunity to highlight the candidates' most memorable traits--for better or worse. Biden's gaffes became Sloppy Joes. McCain's Meatballs were 100-percent vegetarian--a reflection of the Republican nominee's "maverick" spirit. Obama's ‘arugula' comment--from way back in August 2007--turned into Obama's Elitist Potato Salad (follow the New York Times recipe, which replaces mayonnaise with goat cheese). There was even a six-pack of bipartisan beer: half Blue Moon, half Red Stripe.

Although the room did contain a few certified election junkies, there was little debate over a favored candidate. This crowd, not surprisingly for a group of 20-somethings in Manhattan, was made up largely of Obama supporters. To them, his win tomorrow seemed like a given, so much of the campaign conversation shifted toward the lighter events of the last fews days: McCain's Saturday Night Live skit, Palin's prank Sarkozy call. No one went home hungry last night, but there might have been one dish missing among the confident Obamans--a slice of humble pie.

Got any campaign-themed recipes? Share them below.

Twenty-four hours. Thirteen states. And only one of them is typically considered blue.

If you want to get a sense of how steep a climb John McCain faces in the final day of the 2008 presidential campaign, forget about the national polls. Look at the travel schedules instead.

Sure, the last pre-election burst of national numbers is nothing but bad news for McCain. Gallup has Obama trouncing his opponent 55 percent to 44 percent. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal show Obama ahead by eight points, 51-43. The rest of the reliable pollsters give the Democrat leads ranging from six points (Pew, 52-46) to 13 points (CBS, 54-41)--and none shows him polling below 50 percent. 

But presidential elections are won in the battleground states, not on the national stage--so at this point we can pretty much afford to ignore those numbers. What we can't ignore is where the candidates have chosen to spend their last full day of campaigning. It's by far the most important indicator of how they're faring on the eve of the election. And judging by McCain's itinerary--and, for that matter, Obama's--the Arizona senator is not faring well.

McCain starts his day in Tampa. He'll then touch down for tarmac events in Blountville, Tenn., Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Roswell, N.M. and Las Vegas before flying to Prescott, Ariz. to wrap up his seven-state sprint on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse, where one of his political heroes, Barry Goldwater, began and ended his 1964 presidential campaign. Sarah Palin will stump in Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.

There are four things to notice here. First of all, McCain-Palin is making only one stop--Pittsburgh--in Kerry Country, and even that's within 30 miles of the Ohio border. The rest are all red states.

Second, Indianapolis represents McCain's first-ever campaign rally in Indiana. Being forced to stop on Election Eve in a state that George W. Bush won by 20 points four years ago is not a sign of strength.

Third, there's the visit to the Blountville, Tenn. The goal here is to dominate the local TV news, which bleeds over into rural southwestern Virginia, and inspire the sort of turnout necessary to compensate for Obama's advantages in the Metro D.C. and the heavily African-American cities to the east. As Politico's Jonathan Martin notes, "it's a reflection of how imperative winning Virginia is for the GOP that — two days after McCain made stops in Hampton Roads and Fairfax — they would fly the candidate in to drive margins in a lightly populated part of the commonwealth." It's also a reflection of how overwhelmingly Obama has shaped this year's electoral map. The Democrat kicked off his general-election campaign in Bristol, Va. Neither Palin nor McCain visited until today.

Finally, McCain is ending the day with an event Arizona--his home state. Again, not a good omen. (Obama winds up in Chicago, but he's going home, not stumping.)

What's clear from McCain's schedule is that Obama has forced him to close the contest on defense. (Obama, meanwhile, is all offense, with stops today in ruby-red regions of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Indianapolis.)  What's not clear is how McCain expects to defend his way to 270 electoral votes by tomorrow evening.

His advisers--and the drama-hungry media--point to the latest round of polls from Mason-Dixon, which show McCain within the margin of error in Florida (-2), Nevada (-4), Pennsylvania (-4) and Virginia (-3) and leading in Ohio (+2), North Carolina (+3) and Missouri (+1). Now, it's risky to rely on a single set of surveys--instead of a more accurate polling average, like Pollster or RealClear Politics--as your only source of statistics (especially if the pollster in question consistently shows McCain faring 2.5 percent better than said average). But let's imagine for a second that Mason-Dixon is right. Tomorrow, McCain hangs on in Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri. He even comes from behind in Virgina, Florida and Nevada. The problem is, he still won't win unless he overtakes Obama in Pennsylvania--or captures Iowa, New Mexico or Colorado, where Obama consistently polls above 50 percent and leads by 5 to 15 points. The bottom line: even if every close Mason-Dixon state breaks McCain's way, he still faces a steep climb to 270. If they don't, he's toast.

Ultimately, even that scenario is probably rosier than reality. According to the RCP averages, Obama is leading in Florida (+2.5), Virginia (+4.2), Ohio (+4.3), Colorado (+5.5), Nevada (+6.2), New Mexico (+7.3) and Iowa (+15.3). If Obama swipes all of these Bush states, he'll win 338-220; if he flips only the ones where he's polling above 50 percent and/or leading by more than five points, he'll win 291-247. What's more, the Illinois senator is also within striking distance in the red states of North Carolina (tie), Missouri (0.4), Indiana (-1.4), Georgia (-3), Montana (-3.8) and Arizona (-3.5), which are collectively worth another 65 electoral votes. His paths to 270 number in the dozens.

Meanwhile, McCain needs the electoral equivalent of a royal flush to win tomorrow night. With a mad, last-minute dash through as many at-risk red states as humanly possible, the Arizona senator, an inveterate gambler, is doing everything in his power to make his own luck. But chances are it's about to run out.

As part of NEWSWEEK's continuing "Press Box" series, here's my take on the challenges that face a President McCain--and the questions Democrats will ask themselves--if Barack Obama loses tomorrow's election:

Thoughts? Disagreements? Amendments? Ad hominem attacks? The comments, as always, are yours.

As part of NEWSWEEK's continuing "Press Box" series, here's my take on what will happen to the Republican Party if Obama wins tomorrow's election:

Thoughts? Disagreements? Amendments? Ad hominem attacks? The comments, as always, are yours.

By Suzanne Smalley

(David Kohl / AP)

To hear Sarah Palin tell it, this race is far from over.

There's the theme song to the classic underdog film "Rudy" -about a pint-sized factory worker turned football player at Notre Dame whose faith leads him to save the team against all odds-that accompanies her onto the stage at most rallies. There's the joke in her stump speech that Tina Fey better hold onto "that Sarah outfit 'cause she's gonna need it."  And at a rally last night in Batavia, Ohio, a working class town about 40 minutes east of downtown Cincinnati, there was the way Palin launched her speech, with congratulations for the Cincinnati Bengals for winning their first game of the season, before she promised, "There's gonna be another underdog win here Tuesday night!"

Palin hit four cities in all corners of Ohio yesterday, careening from the Akron/Canton area to Marietta, a small city in Appalachian southeastern Ohio (where Hillary Clinton dominated in the Democratic primary), and Columbus before ending the day in Batavia. In Marietta, a crucial part of the state for McCain-Palin, the Alaska governor made an unexpected stop, visiting Pee Wee football players preparing for a game. Cheerleaders standing nearby told Palin their team had already played, and had lost. "We always lose," said one cheerleader. Palin responded: "Well, keep trying."

The governor has been following her own advice. Throughout the day yesterday, Palin hit Obama and the press equally hard, highlighting an audio tape of Obama criticizing the coal industry that surfaced on conservative blogs over the weekend and suggesting it had been intentionally suppressed by a biased media. "You hear Barack Obama talking about bankrupting the coal industry," Palin said at the Columbus rally, referring to the tape. "John McCain and I, we will not let that happen to the coal industry." Palin also asked indignantly why the tape has been "withheld from the electorate." In fact, though the Drudge Report first highlighted the tape yesterday, audio of the interview has been available on the web site of the San Francisco Chronicle since mid-January, when Obama made the comments in an interview with the newspaper's editorial board.

Crowds yesterday reacted emotionally to news of the tape. Ohio is coal country, especially in the southeast, an area of Appalachia in which McCain-Palin is clearly hoping to drive up huge margins. (The southeastern part of Ohio borders West Virginia, and is home to a large number of so-called Reagan Democrats, some of whom Democrats fear will not support Obama because he is black and because of the emotional primary battle with Clinton). In the tape Obama can be heard explaining his support of a cap and trade program that would charge polluters for carbon emissions.

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can," Obama says on the tape. "It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." Palin's false assertion that the media has been suppressing the tape angered some Palin supporters. In Batavia, a couple of men in the crowd looked at reporters angrily and made snide comments, prompting laughter from the journalists.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

THE YEAR OF LIVING ON THE EDGE OF OUR SEATS
(Frank Bruni, New York Times)
Will one candidate win by millions, or lose by thousands? If there is a clear victor, will he be the first black American ever elected to the presidency, or the oldest American ever to win a first term? We don’t need to know the answers to be certain of this much: no matter the outcome, it will be the climax of one of the most extraordinary presidential elections in this nation’s 232-year history, and “the first” and “the oldest” capture only some of what has made it so remarkable. Whether judged by the milestones reached, the paradigms challenged, the passions stirred or simply the numbers — the 85 percent of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track, or the record-demolishing $640 million fund-raising mark that Barack Obama passed by mid-October — the election of 2008 actually warrants the sorts of adjectives and phrases that are often just journalistic tics: epochal, pivotal, historic, once-in-a-lifetime.

THE OPENING OBAMA SAW
(E.J. Dionne, Washington Post)
A good politician triumphs by adapting to the times and taking advantage of opportunities as they come. A great politician anticipates openings others don't see and creates possibilities that were not there before. John McCain might have been the second kind of politician, tried to be the first and enters Election Day at a steep disadvantage. Barack Obama certainly seized the opportunities created by President Bush's failures and the country's profound discontent, which only deepened after the economic crash. But by creating a new social movement, new forms of political organization, and a sense of excitement and possibility not felt in politics for three decades, he is bidding to become one of the country's most consequential leaders... If any candidate's recent past stands as a warning against premature obituaries, it is McCain's. But there seems to be an inexorable quality to Obama's rise this year because he is the first truly 21st-century figure in American politics. He is the innovator who has set the standard for the next political era.

IF OBAMA LOSES, WHO GETS BLAMED?
(John Dickerson, Slate)
If Barack Obama wins the election, it will be historic. And if he loses, it will be pretty historic, too: It would mark the biggest collective error in the history of the media and political establishment. An Obama loss would mean the majority of pundits, reporters and analysts were wrong. Pollsters would have to find a new line of work, since Obama has been ahead in all 159 polls taken in the last six weeks. The massive crowds that have regularly turned out to see Obama would turn out to have meant nothing. This collective failure of elites would provide such a blast of schadenfreude that Republicans like Rush Limbaugh would be struck speechless (another historic first). This situation lends a feeling of unreality to the proceedings as we begin to measure the time until Election Day in hours. It is the elephant on the campaign plane. No one is letting on. Journalists aren't supposed to. Plus, we've been wrong so often, and politics can be so unpredictable, it would be dumb to say that Obama is going to win big.

MCCAIN'S FATE RESTS ON WHO WILL VOTE
(Jim Tankersley, Chicago Tribune)
As the presidential race enters its final weekend after two years of battle, John McCain's best chance for a history-defying comeback rests in the greatest of electoral unknowns: voter turnout. To win on Tuesday, analysts and polls suggest, the Republican nominee must win nearly all the remaining undecided voters in key swing states and peel a large chunk of "soft" supporters from Democratic rival Barack Obama. Then he must hope that his supporters vote in overwhelming numbers, and that more Obama supporters than expected stay home. It would be a daunting task in any election, but it's particularly the case this year, when analysts predict the largest voter turnout ever, perhaps 130 million, and the biggest percentage of eligible voters casting ballots in a century. 

DEMOCRATS FAR OUTSPEND REPUBLICANS ON FIELD OPERATIONS, STAFF EXPENDITURES
(T.W. Farnham and Brad Haynes, Wall Street Journal)
The national and state Democratic parties are spending far more heavily than their Republican counterparts on field operations, after years of ceding the advantage in ground-level organizing to the Republican voter-turnout machine. Finance records show Democrats have hired five to 10 times more paid field staff in swing states than the Republicans. Democrats have set up 770 offices nationwide, including in some of the most Republican areas of traditionally "red" states -- like one in Goshen, Ind., a manufacturing town with a population of about 30,000. It is the seat of Elkhart County, which voted for President George W. Bush in 2004 by more than 40 percentage points. By comparison, Republicans have about 370 offices nationwide. The focus on the ground-game is a change from past election cycles, when the Democratic party's prime objective was getting as many broadcast ads on the air as possible. In recent campaigns, Democrats outsourced their ground organization to outside groups, such as labor unions and liberal activists.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...
 

As a native New Jerseyan, I am duty-bound to post this video of the Boss rallying Cleveland for Obama: 

Via Richard Wolffe:

Four years ago, Bruce Springsteen traveled to Ohio to play an acoustic set for another Democratic nominee. His gig, at Ohio State University in Columbus, wasn’t without trouble. The power failed and the set was delayed for an hour. The crowd was a respectable, but not overwhelming, 25,000. This time around, Springsteen has been playing free gigs without the candidate – until he returned to Ohio on Sunday night to appear onstage with Barack Obama. The crowd size: a much more impressive 80,000. ["I was here a while back — in 2004," Springsteen said. " I’m glad they let me come back. They didn’t think I might jinx them or something.”] His final song before bringing the Obama family on stage: The Rising, which has become part of the soundtrack at each campaign rally.

Welcome to Standard time... and the last 48 hours of the 2008 presidential race.

Here's what I'm reading (and watching) this morning:

1. Adam Nagourney's bird's-eye view of the final sprint, via the New York Times. "Mr. Obama was using the last days of the contest to make incursions into Republican territory, campaigning Saturday in three states — Colorado, Missouri and Nevada — that President Bush won relatively comfortably in 2004," he writes. "Mr. McCain... turned his attention to two states that voted Democratic in 2004 — Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — reflecting what his aides said was polling in both states that suggested the race was tightening. Still, his decision to spend some of his time in the final hours on Democratic turf signaled that Mr. McCain had concluded that his chances of winning with the same lineup of states that put Mr. Bush into the White House was diminishing. Mr. McCain’s hopes appear to rest in large part on his ability to pick up electoral votes from states that Senator John Kerry won for the Democrats four years ago."

Can he do it? McCain's staffers are correct to say the polls are "tightening" in Pennsylvania; since Oct. 20, McCain has managed to slash Obama's average lead in half, from 13.4 percent to seven percent today. But nearly all of that narrowing is a result of undecideds breaking for the Republican, whose numbers have climbed four points--from 40 percent to 44 percent--over the same period. The problem for McCain is that Obama's support has held steady--steadily, that is, above 50 percent. On Oct. 20, the Illinois senator was polling at 52 percent in the Keystone State; today, he's at 51.2 percent. As much as the margin narrows, McCain simply can't win Pennsylvania--and, likely, the election--unless swipes considerable support from Obama, dragging him down into the 40s. Time is running out.

2. Nate Silver's Nov. 1 polling round-up, via FiveThirtyEight. Here, Silver spots each candidate the states that would break their way if (and that's a big if) the polls tighten considerably before Tuesday. McCain would surge ahead in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Georgia and Missouri. Meanwhile, Obama would still prevail in New Mexico (Obama +10), New Hampshire (+10.7), Minnesota (+11.5), Michigan (+12.7), Wisconsin (+11) and Iowa (+15.3). In this scenario--which is the best McCain can hope for--the election would come down to Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada. From here, I'll pass the mic to Nate: 

The victory conditions for Obama involving these five states proceed something as follows:

1. Win Pennsylvania and ANY ONE of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, or Nevada*
2. Win Ohio and EITHER Colorado OR Virginia.
3. Win Colorado AND Virginia AND Nevada.

(* Nevada produces a 269-269 tie, which would probably be resolved for Obama in the House of Represenatives.)

Now, suppose you think that Colorado is already in the bag for Obama because of his large edge in early voting there. We can then simplify the victory conditions as follows:

1. Win Pennsylvania
2. Win Ohio
3. Win Virginia AND Nevada

Which pretty much explains why McCain has spent much of the past two days in the Keystone State--and why Joe Biden is returning for an Election Eve rally in Philly. About 55-65 percent of the 2004 electorate has already voted in New Mexico and Colorado, and according to the latest polls, large majorities of those votes have gone to Obama. If Obama picks up these two Bush states plus Iowa, McCain has no choice but to win Pennsylvania. Otherwise, the election is over--no matter what happens in Florida, Ohio and the rest of the "battleground."

3. Chuck Todd's incredible state-by-state Election Day guide, via MSNBC. Seriously--it's incredible. Read the whole thing.

4. Ross Douthat's essay on "Obama and the Race Card," via the Atlantic. Amid last-minute liberal hyperventilating about how "race will doom Obama yet," this is an important, even-handed reminder that 2008 wasn't a dirty election by any stretch of the imagination--and that being half-African-American has helped Obama as much (if not more) than it's hurt him. "Consider, for a moment, that here we are, five days away from the election, and a Republican nominee for President has run a campaign against an African-American opponent that has barely touched any of the traditional racially-charged domestic-policy issues," Ross writes. "Now there are various reasons why none of these issues have played a role in the campaign:  Attacking on some of these fronts would have required flip-flops on McCain's part; attacking on others (crime, especially) would have reaped vastly diminished returns compared to GOP campaigns of yore; etc. But it's also the case that the Obama campaign (and its surrogates and allies) have done a masterful job of boxing the GOP in on race-related fronts, playing off the media's biases, McCain's sense of honor, and the Republican Party's unpleasant history to create a climate of hair-trigger sensitivity around terrains and topic that usually hurt Democratic candidates." Couldn't agree more.

5. David Broder's look back at this "amazing race," via the Washington Post.  "The voters -- bless 'em -- ignored the oddsmakers," the Dean writes. "They were determined to do their own thing -- set the nation on a new course, sharply different from that of George W. Bush. It did not matter much to them that McCain was too old, by conventional standards, to be running or that Obama's mixed-race background broke the historic color line on the presidency. It was the emergence of these two implausible but impressive candidates that gave 2008 its special stamp... For decades, I have said that the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign was the best I ever saw. But most of the drama in that contest came after Labor Day. This time, the excitement was generously distributed over a whole year, with moments of genuine humor from Huckabee, a torrent of uninhibited conversation from McCain and Biden, and rare eloquence from Obama and both Clintons. The country faces a choice between two men who both promise the nation a more principled, less partisan leadership. And meanwhile, what a show it has been -- the best campaign I've ever covered."

As for me--well, I haven't been covering elections, like Broder, since the 1960s. But I imagine this one will be hard to top.  

6. Fred Armisen impersonating my NEWSWEEK colleague Richard Wolffe on SNL. 

With only 72 hours to go, Stumper will periodically highlight "on the trail" dispatches from my fellow NEWSWEEK bloggers Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe, who will be traveling with McCain and Obama (respectively) through Election Night. Here's Holly on McCain's final countdown:

John McCain is in Virginia this morning, kicking off the final weekend of the campaign in a red state that is threatening to turn blue. It’s worth noting that he’s in what his campaign has referred to as “real Virginia”—Newport News—but we’ll be flying from here to Springfield, a suburb of Washington, D.C., for his final rally in the state before Election Day. From here, we will spend the rest of the day in Pennsylvania before heading to New York City, where McCain will appear on Saturday Night Live tonight...

Tomorrow, McCain spends part of the day in Pennsylvania before heading to New Hampshire, where he’ll hold his final town hall of the campaign in Peterborough, a place that McCain regards as something of a lucky charm. He held his first town hall meeting there during his 2000 campaign and wound up there on the eve of his comeback primary victory earlier this year. It’s “where our campaign has been rescued and resurrected many times before,” Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, told reporters yesterday.

Yet privately, McCain and his aides are unsure if it will be as lucky this time around. Down by 13 points in the state according to poll released yesterday, McCain and his aides view his stop there as more nostalgic than game changing. Indeed, a senior McCain aide says the candidate and his advisers have gone back and forth in recent days about whether the stop was time well spent in the final hours of the campaign.