Last Call

If you've been paying attention to the election prognostication sites, you've probably noticed a trend:  One, that the popular vote is going to be razor close, and two, that the electoral college vote is going to be a landslide in President Obama's favor.  Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast explains:

Imagine it’s election night, say 10:45 east coast time. Four eastern states haven’t been called yet: Ohio (18), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), and Florida (29). Also, in some Western states, the polls haven’t closed, or the races are too tight to project just yet—Colorado and Nevada, say. Arizona has just been called for Romney. At this point, Romney actually leads, 188 to 182. In this scenario I’m assuming Obama has won Iowa (6), which is admittedly close but where his lead has been stable at three or four points, and New Hampshire (4), where Obama has a similar fairly small but stable lead, and Michigan (16), where the gap appears to be opening up a little.

So it’s a six-vote Romney edge. They’re feeling great up in Boston. Especially with the big Eastern four still up in the air. Right?

Not really. Let’s look at these West Coast states. Even though they’re still voting in California, obviously Obama is going to win it (55). And equally obviously, he’s going to win Washington (12) and Oregon (7), where neither side even bothered to spend a dime. Throw in Hawaii (4). Those 78 votes haul Obama up to 260. That’s something to keep in mind for election night: Whatever Obama’s number is at 10 pm Eastern, add those 78 EV’s—they’re a mortal lock, and a hefty insurance policy. If he wins Nevada (6) and Colorado (9), it’s over.

In other words, Obama can lose the big Eastern four—Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida: all of ’em!—and still be reelected.

And barring some huge cataclysm, he’s not losing all four of those states. If he wins even one—say Virginia, the smallest of the four—then Romney has to win Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire; all possible, certainly, but all states where he has been behind, narrowly but consistently, for weeks or months.

In other words it's entirely possible that Romney could win the popular vote, and lose massively in the electoral college.   You'll recall that was the outcome in 2000 as well, only the electoral college was also decided by a few hundred votes in one state:  Florida.

Can you imagine what the wingers would do if that happened?  I can.  Calls for open, armed revolution against the "illegitimate" US government, an "American Spring".  FOX no doubt refusing to refer to Barack Obama as the President.  Calls to "reform" the electoral college by splitting votes along congressional district lines, massively favoring the GOP.  It would be chaos.

And should the GOP win the Senate, they would of course abolish the filibuster and impeachment proceeding would begin in the House immediately.

So yes, the Obama/Romney contest isn't a done deal, but the real battle is in the Senate, folks.