Ramesh Ponnuru says that this win wasn’t about Obama’s win wasn’t about his charisma. It was about the rejection of Republicans. "… the vulnerability of the Republicans to these shocks surely has
something to do with the unattractiveness of the party’s domestic
program. What we have seen over the last two election cycles, it should
be emphasized, was not the rejection of one or another faction of the
Republican party, but of the party itself." Yeah, it’s the Corner.
I’m loving all the commentary about how Obama’s campaign used technology in this election. One guy on CNN today guessed that Obama would continue to these methods in the post-election period to gain support for measures. This article discusses the use of the less flashy technology. "What we’re talking about is a very sophisticated, very elaborate
database that allowed the Obama campaign to microtarget all of its
efforts online and offline," she said. "They used emails to communicate with people with messages relevant
to their districts and relevant to the issues that they cared about and
to organize and mobilize get-out-the-vote efforts," Germany said.
Maps from the New York Times, CNN, Fox, MSNBC
You decide what was dorkier: the Today Show’s map of the country on the ice rink or CNN’s hologram.
Vote for the big winner in this election: Tina Fey, Katie Couric, 538, Joe the Plumber, Will i am, Sarah Palin.
The youth vote happened. "Early reports are indicating that the youngest members of the country’s
electorate voted Tuesday in higher numbers than in the last
presidential election — and they voted more Democratic. Youth turnout
appears to be exceeding 2004 levels, which was itself a year with a big
surge in voters ages 18 to 29."
(This is going on as I’m surfing… Jonah: Mom, I’m supposed to be do a book report on realistic fiction, and I don’t think this book counts. Me: Why not? Jonah: Because the boy in the book is watching TV and he only has two channels.)
Palin’s clothes may have cost more than was earlier reported. 
Great gossip from Newsweek.
Apt. 11d 
538 nailed it…
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I know. A surprising number of my students were reading it in the last couple of week.
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I liked the ice rink. My choice of the NBC affiliate from Chicago turned out to be the right station to watch and tape, also. But weren’t the colors supposed to flip this year (the incumbent party goes from 2004 red to 2008 blue?)
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So, let me get this straight. The very data mining techniques that are nasty verbotten things injurious to the privacy of Americans when used by a Republican President in the name of national security to ferret out terrorists are peachy keen el neato technologies when used by Democrat Obama to ferret out votes and money to get himself elected.
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