Election: Morning After Thoughts

I had an interesting conversation with a Republican friend of mine. He still thinks Obama isn’t as good as McCain, but he’s getting swept up in the moment. Even if you don’t like Obama the candidate, you have to exult in Obama the movement, the historical moment, and the uniqueness of the country that allows and supports it. This is what America is all about.

Yesterday made me feel more patriotic than a million flag lapels.

What to Look For

From http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Andrew Gelman of Columbia University has taken a recent set of our simulations to look at what may happen conditional on the outcomes of the first states to close their polls at 6 and 7 PM. The bottom line? If those states go roughly as expected (meaning, say, an Obama win in Virginia and a close race in Indiana), we can conclude with almost literal 100 percent certainty that Obama will win the election:

It’s 7:01 as I write this. Time to see what’s going on.

Why McCain Can’t Get Credit

I really liked this long Ezra Klein post.

Imagine, then, what would have happened if Barack Obama had ended up running against the senator who brought the first cap-and-trade bill before the Congress, passed one of the most important campaign finance reform bills in history, voted against Bush’s tax cuts, championed the Patient’s Bill of Rights, fought for comprehensive immigration reform, and was the Senate’s most effective opponent of torture. Catastrophe, right?

Luckily, Obama didn’t run against that guy. John McCain, who did all that, spent this election refusing to mention any of his accomplishments. He argued the virtues of experience without pointing to its fruits. He bragged of being a maverick without explaining how his independence had resulted in tangible achievements.

The rest is good also.

Poker Update

When one of the best players gets lucky, everyone else is in trouble. Tonight that person was not me. I played well and it didn’t matter.

In the early going, 4 players limped in. I figured I would limp in with any connectors, pairs, high cards… just about anything. I had Q-7. Not that. I folded, and the flop was Q-Q-7. Argh, I shoulda limped in with everyone else. The next hand three players limp. I have Q-7 again! I grit my teeth and fold. The flop was Q-7-3. Oh, c’mon! Later in the night I was dealt Q-7. I had to call. The flop was A-K-4 and I summarily folded.

Meanwhile one of the other good players is hitting cards left and right. Our eleven players are down to four. Top three finish in the money. I have the second biggest stack, but he has over 50% of the chips. With blinds at 200-400, I have K-J suited and position. I go in for 1100, he calls me from the small blind. The flop is K-x-x. He thinks for a while and bets 1,500. I’m fairly sure he has nothing or King with a low kicker. I think about stringing him along. Eh, why take chances? I call his 1,500 and go all in for 3,200 more. He calls. He has A-J. He had the better hand preflop, but I have the K on the board. You can see where this is going to end up, right? Yes and no. The turn and river are 10 and Q, he gets the straight to knock me out. Annoying. I finished just out of the money.

Tonight: -$20
Running Total: $550

Stuff Like This is Why John McCain is Going to Lose

The New York Times magazine had a great article on the re-branding of John McCain. This particular quote stuck out at me.

Reviewing the tape, it didn;t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said,  “undecided.” What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues energy independence and ethics reform and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her.A friend had said to Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best and that’s your V. P.”

Shameful. The very next paragraph:

Schmidt, to whom Davis quietly supplied the Palin footage, agreed. Neither man apparently saw her lack of familiarity with major national or international issues as a serious liability.

This is not a man who showed good judgement. This is not a man who put his country first. This is a man who let the most base and political advisers pick his vice president because she looked good.