Rachel Maddow takes apart the argument that Democrats should play nice with Joe Lieberman to get a sixty seat majority in the senate. Brilliant, but you really need to watch the whole six minutes.

Unfortunately the media plugin I’m using doesn’t seem to work with MSNBC’s embedded video code. Here’s a link instead.

I tried not to get too excited last night when Olbermann and Maddow were touting Mark Begich’s three vote lead in the Alaska senate race. Having gone from a 3200 vote deficit to a virtual tie was pretty impressive, but they had only counted about half of the early and absentee votes at that point. It was possible that the remainder could swing back in favor of Stevens.

This afternoon, it is being reported that Begich is now up by about 800 votes with about two thirds of those votes counted. I imagine this will go to a recount, but it’s damn nice to see a possibility of unseating that vile, old bastard.

Unfortunately, the possibility of pickups by Begich, Franken, and Martin makes Joe Liar-man a lot more important I’ll really hate it if he manages to hold onto the chairmanship of the homeland security committee.

We may get official word later today that there will be a December 2nd run-off election for the Georgia senate seat currently held by Republican Saxby Chambliss. Libertarian Party candidate Allen Buckley appears to have denied Chambliss the 50%+1 vote majority that is needed to carry the seat.

If you make the common assumption that most of the libertarian vote will go to Chambliss, then this is still an uphill battle for Jim Martin, but it is winnable. As the only federal election going on between now and the end of the year, Martin may well have a fund raising advantage in this thing.

MSNBC is reporting that the discussions between Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman included Reid telling Lieberman that he was welcome to continue caucusing with the Democrats, but that he would not be allowed to continue on as chairmen of the Homeland Security committee. Lieberman’s response was that this was unacceptable to him. He’s now being wooed by Mitch McConnell and the GOP.

That was among the things that were being speculated about the meeting yesterday, but MSNBC has apparently appropriately sourced the info today. I say they should kick him to the curb. Lieberman got a quid pro quo for his support when his vote made them a 51-49 majority. There’s no reason why we should keep on paying him now, especially after what he did in the Presidential election. If we manage to fuck things up badly enough that we somehow lose enough seats two years from now for it to matter, then we don’t deserve to lead the senate anyway.

I was digging through the state maps at the google maps elections page earlier. If their map was correct, Obama didn’t manage to take a single county in Oklahoma. If all of their maps are correct, Oklahoma was the only state where every county went for the same candidate. If we ever see a Democrat take 49 states, the holdout will be Oklahoma.

I have a visceral dislike of Chris Shays. He has this whiny, passive aggressive weasel-y manner that just bugs the hell out of me. I have been tempted several times to put up a cartoonishly anti-Shays website at the URL www.chrisshaysisabitch.com. On the occasons where I have checked, that domain has been open.

Shays went down tonight. So I can now adjust my potential domain. It could be www.excongressmanchrisshaysisabitch.com

Fox calls New Mexico for Obama. yay!

CNN calls Mitch McConnell holding onto his senate seat. Fuck.

Liddy Dole loses her senate seat as of 8:30 eastern according to MSNBC.

Obama continues to hold that 200k vote lead in Florida.

MSNBC calling Georgia for McCain. The senate seat isn’t looking great there, either. No one I’m watching has called it yet, though.

Exit polling in Virginia makes this one look like a real nailbiter, but still probably leaning toward Obama.

MSNBC is calling the entire northeastern corner of the country for Obama, including both New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. The exit polling must be pretty damn strong because their calling PA with 0% of precincts reporting.

FoxNews and CNN are not calling Pennsylvania yet.

I’m watching’ McCain’s last statement on the election until after the results are final. He’s totally being the brave soldier right now. His expressions, tone of voice, and body language belie his words.

AP Exit polling says that 1/3rd of privatization fanatic Mitch Daniels’ in Indiana voted for Obama.