Author: Andrew Sullivan

Reading his blog at Newsweek gives me a headache. So many boldfaces, exclamation marks, colors and question marks. And it somehow evokes – about three people will get this – Glenda Slagg.

538's guide is among the best. The first races to report:

Much more here.

Weigel's advice:

Just as we knew that Obama was going to win when the networks couldn't call Indiana — in an instant it was clear the "Bradley effect" was a myth — and just as we knew that the Democrats were winning the House when Democrat John Yarmuth started winning in Kentucky's 3rd district, we will know a lot after 7 this year. If Yarmuth is struggling, against a Tea Party candidate who beat the NRCC's choice, Democrats are basically doomed — they are losing in an urbanized district which has been steadily trending toward them.

Another gruesome day as alienated Sunni/al Qaeda terrorists (or mere nihilists) killed more than 70 people in 15 coordinated blasts, injuring up to 300. The attempt to reignite sectarian war is real:

Tonight’s bombs all detonated within 90 minutes of each other. Hospitals were appealing for blood donors, and the city’s main A&E centres were reporting large numbers of casualties amid chaotic scenes.

The bombs exploded in 12 areas of the city, including a police station in Sadr City and a coffee shop in New Baghdad. Restaurants appeared to be prominent targets in other attacks, along with main roads and, in one case, a funeral tent.

The scale of the attacks and the ease with which car bombs were, yet again, able to penetrate security cordons constitute a damaging blow for Iraq‘s security forces, which have remained without effective leadership for eight months owing to the crippling political crisis that has seen politicians unable to form a government.

The NYT says the targets were varied:

The bombings tore across lines of sect and class, striking poor Shiite neighborhoods, a Sunni mosque, a crowded restaurant in the north of the city and middle-class shopping areas. “I tried to escape, but there was chaos,” said Mustafa Mohammed Saleh, a dentist who was leaving his office in the Shiite enclave of Bayaa when he saw four explosions that scattered bodies into the street. “You see what happens: The most secure part of Baghdad, they hit.” “Tension,” he added, “is in the air.”

McSweeneys has the transcript. Money quote:

I do not understand this world as being capable of containing anything called Washington, DC. I believe Washington, DC to be one giant hologram. Washington, DC, like my gay son, is dead to me.

Radley Balko thinks so:

It's telling that the loudest voices opposing pot legalization are coming from the mainstream media, politicians, and law enforcement. The three have a lot in common.

Indeed, the Prop. 19 split illustrates how conservative critics of the mainstream media have it all wrong. The media—or at least the editorial boards at the country's major newspapers—don't suffer from liberal bias; they suffer from statism. While conservatives emphasize order and property, liberals emphasize equality, and libertarians emphasize individual rights, newspaper editorial boards are biased toward power and authority, automatically turning to politicians for solutions to every perceived problem.

 

Mark Blumenthal projects a 48 seat gain for Republicans in the House. On the Senate:

The 86% probability we are reporting (as of this hour) on the Election Dashboard of Democrats maintaining their majority [in the Senate] assumes that each state's result is statistically independent. However, if the polling has a national bias – a subject discussed here in more detail this morning — the chances of a single party sweep of the close races is likely much greater. So while Democrats are likely to retain control, the potential for a Republican Senate majority remains very real.

Ambers gets some cold water at the ready:

If anything the early boiler room data makes the Democrats quite nervous.

It's O'Donnell by a mile. Weigel sighs:

So of the top three most-covered candidates, two (O'Donnell, Paladino) never really were given a chance to win, and three (Whitman, Crist, Lincoln), are widely expected to lose today. The problem, perhaps, is focusing on elections like the way American Idol producers focus on which schmucks they'll use from the audition footage.