Tip of the Iceberg

Category politics
...in the event of certain remote, but entirely feasible occurrences. Most poll aggregation sites, such as pollster.com and electoral-vote.com, consider both Iowa and New Mexico to be lost causes for McCain. Both of these states were carried by Bush in 2004, so should Obama carry all the Kerry states (which is considered fairly likely at this point), the additional two bring him to 264 electoral votes, 6 shy of the 270 needed to win. But there's a catch: in the event of a 269-269 tie, the election is decided by the House, which will almost certainly remain controlled by the Democrats. Obama has been polling consistently ahead of McCain in Nevada, which has 5 EVs; if he carries only NM, IA and NV (in addition to the Kerry states), it's a tie... so he still wins, although he'd have to wait until January for it to be official.

That is, unless McCain's recent gains in Pennsylvania are in time for him to gain its 21 EVs. Should that occur, Obama comes up short unless he can make those EVs up elsewhere. As it turns out, the Bush states of Colorado and Virginia are not only leaning Obama in recent polling but considered likely wins for him; with 9 and 13 EVs, respectively, for a total of 22, he ends up with 270. That's assuming, of course, that McCain picks up all of the 62 combined EVs in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio... all of which are currently leaning Obama.

To make matters worse, Obama is only behind in both Arkansas and South Dakota by the same margin McCain must close in Pennsylvania, and McCain's lead is even narrower in West Virginia, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, and (surprise) Arizona. Did I forget any? Hm... nope, there are only 9 nine states leaning McCain (including his home state) that are either as tenuous as, or more so than, the lead Obama currently has in Pennsylvania that McCain has been trying to erode. If McCain regains NC but GA flips to Obama, they cancel each other out; the same is true if McCain carries PA but loses AZ and either MO or IN... or GA, MT and ND.

To sum up, McCain must hold onto his narrow margin in:
AR, AZ, GA, IN, MO, MT, ND, SD and WV
He must also regain:
FL, NC, OH, PA and at least one of CO, NV, and VA
In pretty much any other scenario considered feasible at this point, Obama wins.

If you live in any of these states, want to impact the outcome (in either direction), and have not already voted early, you must vote tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow: if you've seen one of the fliers that the Republicans have been distributing in some Democratically-prone counties stating that, in order to reduce congestion from the anticipated record turnout, Republicans are supposed to vote Tuesday and Democrats are supposed to vote Wednesday... don't believe it. Election day is tomorrow... for all of us... no matter who tries to keep you away.

Speaking of which, if you live in any state not mentioned above, you must vote tomorrow. Nearly every pollster and media organization - not to mention each half of the behemoth elephonkey - has already written off your vote as a foregone conclusion. If you're a conservative in Rhode Island, show up to remind them that not every resident of New England is a liberal. If you're a white progressive in Mississippi, show up to remind them that they are the ones continuing to foster identity-based ideology, not us, and they need to shut the hell up already. If you're one of the 30% of us who still doesn't align with either major party, and are tired of watching them continually lash out at each other instead of working together to accomplish something worthwhile, show up to remind both of them that, sooner or later, the joint stranglehold they have for too long maintained on the ability of this nation to make meaningful and lasting progress will eventually come to an end, and that all starts tomorrow.

Finally, and even more importantly than the presidential election (sorry, Barack, I love ya and all but it's true), keep in mind that the most likely "downticket" side effect of this election is a Democratic majority of roughly 250-185 in the House and, in the Senate, anywhere from 58-42 to 63-37. The latter would have the more noticeable result: although incumbent Republican senators love to mention, over and over again, that the Democrats have been "in charge" since the '06 election but haven't accomplished anything, they tend to neglect to mention (and, thus far, majority leader Harry Reid hasn't had the balls to call them on it publicly enough for most people to notice) that they have been procedurally blocking every attempt at progress; a simple "no" vote on a cloture motion can be enough to kill any bill you don't like when you have a 49-seat minority. But if the Democrats reach the 60-seat threshold - which they are likely to do, since Al Franken (yes, that Al Franken) will probably defeat Norm Coleman in Minnesota, and Obama probably has enough coattails to allow Jim Martin to unseat Saxby Chambliss here in Georgia... and even minority leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky appears to be at risk - then all of the scary socialism you've been hearing about lately (for example, approaching healthcare the same way we've always approached the education system... yes, I know, the sky is literally falling as we speak, get out while you still can) is going to come to pass without any of the roadblocks we've seen the last two years ("Really? You're fine with insurance companies letting people die because their treatable skin cancer is considered a 'pre-existing condition'? Okay, let's put it to a vote." "Waaaaaaaaaaa, I don't wanna."), because the Democrats will have a large enough majority to bust any filibuster. If you don't want that to happen - or want to ensure it does - you must vote tomorrow.