A long night...

Ok, so I am watching exit poll data on FoxNews, they are already giving Kentucky to McCain and Vermont to Obama, with 10% of the vote in or so - which I think is a little early.
Now they have added West Virgina to McCain.

But the interesting thing is, McCain is leading on average through the BattleGrounds by 7-10% out of a few hundred thousand votes already - so perhaps some good news, but way too early to be able to trust these numbers...

Virgina looks to be having 2 Democratic Senators, so that does not bode well for McCain.
I heard as well that apparently the Obama campaign has virtually given up on North Carolina, which could bode well for McCain and Elizabeth Dole, who is one of three GOP senators in close races I predicted would hold their seats (the others being Norm Coleman and Saxby Chambliss) due primarily to the ground game going to the GOP.


I'm going to stay up until we have a winner between McCain and Obama, but mostly good news so far for McCain it appears...


EDIT 1:
Ok, so I am going to make a few predictions, besides the one about which GOP Senators I wrote about above...
Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida will go for McCain.
Ohio and Pennsylvania will be closer.

Beyond those states, I have no clue, but it will be interesting to see what happens based on the first exit polling...


EDIT 2:
FoxNews now projects that Kay Hagan has defeated Elizabeth Dole - but only 4% reporting. Dunno how this will affect McCain, but it looks like I was wrong on at least one of my Senate predictions.


EDIT 3:
FoxNews and others are now projecting Obama will win Pennsylvania, but I have yet to see a single vote count, so I am a bit skeptical...
On a brighter note, Saxby Chambliss is now projected to keep his seat.

EDIT 4:
Now Ohio has been projected to go to Obama - looks all but impossible for McCain now...

EDIT 5:
Obama is now up in Florida and North Carolina. Although McCain maintains a steady lead in Virginia, it may not matter any more.
Going to wait now for some absolutely solid vote counts before I post again, because, from the projections alone, it looks like Obama will win quite handily...

EDIT 6:
Obama now has a 50,000 vote lead in Virginia with 91% of precincts reporting, and Pennsylvania is also showing a large lead for Obama.
If there is a silver lining to this, McCain is now on top on North Carolina - but it won't be enough.
I think most likely Obama has won now, even if McCain comes back in Florida.

Looking back, I think it was McCain who killed himself. Months ago he could have attacked Obama on his connections and on his socialist plans, both of which have done well for him these last two weeks, but he needed to make them sooner.
In the end, I think where he failed was that he was tentative on the economy.
Coming out of the conventions he had sometimes double digit leads in the polls.
Then wall street crashed, and Obama gained as large a lead.
McCain at that time didn't come out with a strong, decisive plan for what to do, instead he appeared slow and confused about what to do.
In the end I think he did eventually come out with the better plan, but it was too late, the public had already formed the opnion that he was inept on the issue.


I think, after all this, McCain was the best candidate for us to pose.
The reasons being:

1. With the econimc crisis, few of the possible GOP candidates could have survived it, and Romney, who is most likely to have been able to, would already have been too far out on other issues, and he would have had a harder time with the base even than McCain.
2. McCain losing will not hurt the GOP next time around, because he won't be running, so perhaps Romney can come back without having lost last time.
3. Palin was a bold choice, and I think she is going to be a strong contender next cycle for President.

I must say well done to Obama (or his campaign staff) on a good run in the race - and I just request that I don't have to congratulate you on a grand farce in a few months, and you actually come through on your promises...