Tracking Election 2008: Presidential, Senate and House

Via Dale Carpenter at VC, this newly found website: http://www.electoral-vote.com/

It tracks with Bloglines. I'll be looking at it whenever it updates.

This is from today's update:

Clinton's future may depend a lot on what she does in the next five months. If she endorses Obama and then goes back to her Senate work, hoping he loses so she can run in 2012, she won't look good and Democrats will never forgive her. If she really tries hard to get him elected, win or lose she will get a lot of credit with party members. If she really makes it to stage five, acceptance, [Reference here the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance] and sees that she is not going to be President, she could start thinking about where her future lies. There are a number of options. She could go the Ted Kennedy route and try to become one of the greatest and most influential senators ever. She could ask Obama for the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services and finally achieve the universal health care she failed to achieve as first lady. He'd agree in a flash to get her supporters on board. Likewise, she could ask to be appointed to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court and he'd probably grant that, too. She could ask for his support for a run for governor of New York in 2010. There is one obstacle there: Gov. David Paterson might decide to run for election, but Obama could help out by offering Paterson a job in his administration (and the threat that he would openly support Clinton in a primary). She has lots of options. It will be interesting to see what she does. Her gut instinct is not as good as Bill's, but she is a talented person and if she plays her cards right, still has quite a future.

Five ThirtyEight Dot Com is another tracking site. Their latest commentary talks about Brian Schweitzer, governor of Montana, as a possible VP choice for Obama.

In addition to being a strong speech-giver, Schweitzer is a gifted quote-machine. He regularly delivers the glib, funny ways of both explaining his position on policy and mocking his opponents for their unreasonableness. It's hard to think of a more effective way of developing popularity among voters who think of themselves as uncomplicated common sense types. His most notable one-liner is actually a counterpose to the legacy of national Clinton branding of the Democratic Party: "Gun control is you control your gun and I'll control mine." It's glib, it's memorable, it communicates exactly where he stands, it's populist.
[...]
One big advantage of adding Schweitzer to the ticket would be his ability to play the perfect VP role of constantly tweaking John McCain in the language that would reach the so called "working class white vote" that has the collective punditocracy up in "Oh Noesville!!1!!11!" Tweaking John McCain from two different rhetorical angles would resonate on a much wider platform. And tweaking thin-skinned John McCain drives John McCain out of his mind with rage. All you have to do is quote the guy accurately and he snaps. Brian Schweitzer would keep his cool. He's very hard to rattle. When Mike Lange memorably went on an end-of-session, profanity-laced diatribe against Schweitzer, Schweitzer played it masterfully by not taking the bait and emphasizing Mike Lange in a bad moment was not the Mike Lange he knew. Game, set, match.
[...]
Will an offer from Obama come? I am probably the only poker player who has the mp3 of this year's Mansfield-Metcalfe Obama speech on his iPod shuffle. When I hear that speech, it's clear from Obama's reference to Schweitzer that he has great admiration for the governor's skill. "And how about this guy?" is how he starts out. It's obvious Obama has great appreciation for Schweitzer's talent. Obama clearly sees Schweitzer's gifts. You know Obama's thought about him as VP.