Dreams, Politics, and The Slosh Baffle!
Captain’s Log,
I was heading through Fred Meyers a couple of weeks ago when I came upon the tea aisle, where I noticed Twinings earl grey. I was running low on earl grey, and I happened to remember the Twinings brand from Bartle’s blog. I don’t remember if his comments were good or bad, but I figured I would take my chances with an earl grey from the country that invented it. Even if Bartle had spoken ill of the stuff, perhaps my tastes would be inferior to his, and I would end up pleased anyway.
“Pleased” would be a good word for it. This is one of the better earl grey blends I have ever had, and I only say “better” and not “best” because I can’t remember every cup from every brand that I’ve ever had. It’s delicious, very well-balanced…much superior to the overly-fruity earl grey I bought last time. The Twinings’ blend’s one problem is that it doesn’t pack quite enough oomph per teabag (aside: I love that “oomph” passes the spellchecker), and two bags would be too much. One possibility is that the tea isn’t wrapped sufficiently well, or is allowed to lose its intensity at some point. The tea is individually wrapped so I would not have expected much quality degradation, but the wrapping is paper only, no foil, so…who knows? In any case, for now I am eschewing my preference for strong tea in favor of delicious but weak tea. I’m just about finished brewing my first cup of the morning.
And what a morning it is! Even in Seattle, these completely overcast days are uncommon. Oh, and I’m only saying this at a few minutes shy of nine o’clock in the morning. I don’t know what it will be like in six hours, or even one. Yesterday I woke up at seven thirty and thought I was in for a treat, only for it to be sunny by the time I went out an hour later.
Today, though…today looks more promising. With an inch of rain forecast, and as many as two more inches tonight, I expect these clouds to tarry a while. I love it when they’re so thick that it blunts the daylight, allowing me to turn on some of the lights in my apartment. Lights on an overcast day are one of those special pleasures in life, complemented only by fine tea and a chance to sit down and write in the ol’ journal.
I dreamed for over an hour in the same general setting: A massive hotel. There were different storylines. At one point, I was in the midst of some post-apocalyptic geek rave. There were people partying everywhere, music and noise and trash. Everyone had their laptops, and there were plenty of televisions and other electronics, so the hotel had so many wires all over the place that it looked like the Borg were visiting. I remember mentally criticizing the old hotel for not anticipating the Internet when it originally wired the place. In the midst of this techno-carnage, I was interacting with a thin, small female who reminded me of (but was not) V. “Kawasaki Mitsubishi” Matsumoto, one of my high school’s valedictorians. I was completely unhappy with her for not being Kendra, but at the same time both of us felt disconnected from the crowd and didn’t want to let the other down, so I finally suggested that we go find a nice sofa somewhere, take our shirts off, cover up under a blanket, and watch a movie. She agreed, but, dreams being what they are, we ended up in a LAN conference. I remember being disappointed enough at being subjected to that kind of inanity that it actually woke me up. “I don’t have to keep dreaming about this,” I thought to myself.
But actually I did. After a bathroom break and a glass of water, I went back to sleep and was in the same hotel, where I had other adventures. At one point I was in a room packed full of people who were getting their blood pressure taken. (Kind of like one of those doctor’s stands at a street festival.) One of the people, who reminded me of Joe Rib, had had extraordinarily good blood pressure after running a marathon earlier in the evening. In reality it would have been low enough to kill him. Dreams being a land of contrast, now his blood pressure had gone up to something higher-this time high enough to kill him: The lower number was 210. Somebody else got theirs taken, but when I it came my turn, the doctor was gone and nobody left was allowed to administer the test. Missed out again!
One of the interesting things about this hotel was that, on the middle floors-I was never on the lower floors except during that LAN conference, where there were lots of windows looking out into the dim blue of gloaming, a silhouetted black coastline, and the sea-many of the corridors had views of lower corridors…as if the hotel was in the shape of a very right racing oval and you could look out the window literally ten feet or so and onto the floor below you. (And only the floor below you; it’s strange how dream physics work.) This led to several confusing moments when I thought I had a view onto places that I had been earlier in my dream. I’m leaving a lot out of the dream, for lack of remembering it, so think of it as “you see someplace else every time you look out a window.”
Finally, at the end, I was getting out of the elevator with some classmates from my childhood. Roy was there, and Derek from high school, I think, as well as others. This time I was the odd person out of the group. I thought the door to Roy’s room was right around the corner from the elevator, but two others started running the other way, down a very long corridor. Since the upper floors of the hotel were a conventional square layout, with a circuit corridor, I figured that I had gotten one corner mixed up with its opposite counterpart. Also figuring that the other people were running to get away from moi, I followed them at top speed. Even so, it wasn’t fast enough. When I got down the corridor and peeked around the corner, I saw that they were gone and the room door was locked and undisturbed. It was the wrong room; I had been right in the first place. The two who had eluded me must have kept running when they got around the corner, down the short side, and then round the corner again to go down the other long corridor. I knew I wouldn’t catch them that way, so I turned around and ran as fast as I could back the way I came. My legs turned out to be flagging. Sometimes in dreams it’s like my body is molasses and I can’t move it all. Not so this time: I was running at quite a clip, but I’ve never been in condition enough to run at a dead sprint for that distance. (It was a long corridor.) So I was sputtering toward the end, slowing down, slowing down, kicking it up, slowing down.
In the end I made it around the corner and to the correct room just as a different person was being let in. I wormed my way into the room. Roy wasn’t there, but it was the right place. I asked if he would be mad if I was in his room. Derek said no, but I think he was being pragmatic about it.
That’s when I woke up. You know, in retrospect, those were some crummy dreams. When I was there, however, the dreams were pleasantly neutral. They also featured many faces from the past, which is usually a net gain.
Today is Veteran’s Day, and technically also Armistice Day. I was clued into this yesterday when visiting the bank (the teller told me that they’d have reduced operations today). This morning, I had since forgotten that little detail, but when I looked out from my balcony, I saw that the Space Needle had its huge flag up.
“What the heck is their flag-oh yeah! Veteran’s Day!”
Too bad; visibility is poor right now, so the flag is hard to see. It’s a huge flag, by the way, about two stories tall. Speaking of American flags, I think I mentioned that Seattle is having a run on them. What I didn’t mention is that the Republican parts of America are also having a run on guns. Jeez…
Human culture in America has changed a lot in the last century, which causes Veteran’s Day to become something of a puzzle. Veteran’s Day is a commemoration of those who have served in uniform in defense of the country. Except for Labor Day, and, if you want to be picky, Presidents’ Day, America has no comparable holiday to commemorate those who have served in any other job. Some say that this is because the work of the military makes possible the work of the nation. Some say that this is because you’re not very likely to get shot and killed in most other lines of work. I could quibble with both of those claims, but that these claims exist at all-much like the holiday itself-is a testament to the glorification of violence and the desire for physical supremacy that humanity has exhibited (often by necessity) since time immemorial. Nowadays, however, the borders of the country have long been peaceful. The world is passing into a new era. As a result, there are more and more people like my friend Michael, who is so disconnected from the mechanical and natural aspects of the humanity of the past as to be almost nonchalant about them, and who would be genuinely puzzled at the existence of such a holiday as Veteran’s Day were they not also capable of cynically dismissing the passions of other human beings. I too am mostly (though not completely) disconnected from the mechanical and natural aspects of the world, but I have always taken an interest in history, which makes up somewhat for my lack of association. I can therefore understand why we might have a Veteran’s Day, even if I personally, as I said, might quibble that this underplays the contributions of people who have served our country in other ways-often at greater peril or suffering. But how long will it be until even somebody like me finds Veteran’s Day to be an awkward highlight?
I’m not saying we should undo the holiday. That’s not the right way to go about embracing change. Veteran’s Day means a lot to many people, maybe even to me, and taking their holiday away is foolish division in any case. I would, however, like to see the culture begin to catch up with the times by highlighting other aspects as our emerging society as well as those of the society gone by. Of course, this sort of stuff usually only works from the bottom up. When enough people are living in the new society rather than the old one, I suspect our national culture will begin to reflect people’s new worldview. But for today, I sure am glad that America never got conquered by the Huns or any of that, and I thank my armed forces for their service. I sure wouldn’t want to have to carry a 70-pound backpack in the 120-degree summers of Iraq. If it came to the draft, I’d try and get a station at the South Pole.
Incidentally, here’s a Josh Prediction you can Take to the Bank (if we have any banks left by the time your investment matures): The military draft, per se, is probably not coming back anytime soon. However, look for some kind of compulsory national service. If Obama’s presidency does achieve FDR status, I can’t imagine there not being some major push for service-presumably applying to high school or possibly college graduates.
Also speaking of Josh Predictions, you’ll recall I wrote this about two weeks ago:
I've counted up all the battleground electoral votes, and have arrived at an absolute best case scenario for Tuesday. The magic number is 426 electoral votes. In my mind that is the absolute upper limit for how many votes Obama may win in his likely national sweep. To get there, we'd have to win absolutely everything in play, including the long-shots of Montana, North Dakota, Louisiana, Arizona (!), Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia, as well as winning all of the likelier states such as Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada.
On the other end of the spectrum, Obama may well fall short in any of the likelier states, except possibly Virginia which I think he has just about locked up. If that happens, Obama will only win 288 votes. If the unthinkable happens and he loses Virginia as well, that goes down to 275, which in my mind represents Obama's worst case scenario.
A much likelier number, I think, is somewhere in the range of 364 to 376, with Obama winning all of the aforementioned “likelier” states plus either of Missouri or Indiana-both worth 11 votes-plus one more state from the long-shot category. That's if turnout is in line with realistic expectations. If we get a bombshell turnout, then Obama will run the table.
In any event, it's likely to be a short night for John McCain: It only takes 270 electoral votes to get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Obama won all of my “likelier states,” including to my surprise both Ohio and Florida, which I had been deeply skeptical of all year and right through till the end. (It’s worth noting that we only won Ohio because fewer Republicans voted; the same number of Democrats voted as in 2004. The only silver lining is that Ohio’s population has dropped since 2004, so the percentage is a bit higher.) Of the “long-shots”, he only won Indiana, and that by a hair’s breadth. Still, I nailed the electoral count, predicting “364 to 376” when he ended up with 365-one vote for every day of the year.
So, did I become smart all of a sudden? Not really; I just knew who to read. Nate Silver was the real genius this year; his projections were on the mark.
Back in May, I had predicted Obama would win 304 electoral votes:
Barack Obama: 304
Washington
Oregon
California
Montana
New Mexico
Colorado
Minnesota
Iowa
Wisconsin
Illinois
Michigan
North Carolina
Virginia
Washington, DC
Pennsylvania
New York
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Rhode Island
New Jersey
Delaware
Maryland
Hawaii
So how smart am I? Well, on the number that matters most, I was off by 61 electoral votes. That’s a lot. In terms of the actual states won, however, I did very well. My blind was Ohio and Florida, where I ignored information all year that suggested Obama was competitive. That accounts for 47 of my 61 botched votes. The remaining fourteen came from these states:
Montana, which I had predicted for Obama, went to McCain. Obama was competitive there this year, but only relative to previous Democratic performances. Montana is slowly turning blue, or seems to be, but it isn’t there yet. Colorado, on the other hand, is.
Nevada and Indiana I had projected for McCain, which he lost. I didn’t know about Nevada until later in the year, and Indiana was so truly a squeaker victory that I can forgive myself for getting it wrong. (In other words, I very nearly got it right.) Then again, the same applies to North Carolina, which Obama won almost as narrowly as he won Indiana.
I predicted Obama would get a higher share of the popular vote than he eventually did. However, I underestimated his margins. If you look at the states he won, he won 262 electoral votes by cushions of nine points or more. Indeed, most of his victories were double-digit, and he won several (including California) by nearly two-to-one margins. On McCain’s side, only the sparsely populated Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah were so imbalanced. What this means is that Obama’s electoral vote structural strength was fairly poor, in relation to the raw popular vote. In other words, by taking away from the surpluses of people who gave Obama super-majorities in some states, there were enough people overall who voted for him that, if they had been relocated to other states, Obama could have carried practically every state in the Union. He won big.
All in all, my predictions were okay. You can read all of them by following the link. They were not satisfactory, though. Had Obama done as well as I thought he would do just days before the election, my predictions would have fared worse. Hopefully I’ll know enough to do better in 2012.
In other political news, Darcy Burner lost her race. This is a shame. After two defeats, the 8th District seems closed to her now. I wish Darcy and her family well in whatever move she decides to make next.
Let’s shift gears and talk about yesterday. There are three random bits from yesterday that I have to share:
1) As I was walking home from the bank, I crossed paths with three people who were walking the other way. I heard a snippet of their conversation: “Thank you for your fecal sample, ma’am.” And they passed out of range before I could hear any more. Hrm!
2) Not related to No. 1: I tried a McGriddle for the first time yesterday. I had won two breakfast sandwiches in McDonald’s Monopoly contest, so I redeemed them both of them yesterday since I happened to be on First Hill. I don’t much like McDonald’s breakfast food, but with free coupons and a low food supply at home, I went for it. Good thing I did! They’re onto something with these McGriddles. The one I had was tasty and filling. I would eat one right now if it didn’t mean a thirty-minute walk there, up a big hill, and a thirty-minute walk back.
3) Monday’s Term of the Day is slosh baffle. It’s exactly what it sounds like (it baffles slosh), used everywhere from automobiles to the space program, but it has got to be one of the most fun things to say, ever. “Shut yer slosh baffle!” “Quit yer slosh baffling!” “Full power to the slosh baffle!” “Well, baffle my slosh!” I love it. Slosh Baffle Forever!
That is a suitable note on which to end this entry. =)
I was heading through Fred Meyers a couple of weeks ago when I came upon the tea aisle, where I noticed Twinings earl grey. I was running low on earl grey, and I happened to remember the Twinings brand from Bartle’s blog. I don’t remember if his comments were good or bad, but I figured I would take my chances with an earl grey from the country that invented it. Even if Bartle had spoken ill of the stuff, perhaps my tastes would be inferior to his, and I would end up pleased anyway.
“Pleased” would be a good word for it. This is one of the better earl grey blends I have ever had, and I only say “better” and not “best” because I can’t remember every cup from every brand that I’ve ever had. It’s delicious, very well-balanced…much superior to the overly-fruity earl grey I bought last time. The Twinings’ blend’s one problem is that it doesn’t pack quite enough oomph per teabag (aside: I love that “oomph” passes the spellchecker), and two bags would be too much. One possibility is that the tea isn’t wrapped sufficiently well, or is allowed to lose its intensity at some point. The tea is individually wrapped so I would not have expected much quality degradation, but the wrapping is paper only, no foil, so…who knows? In any case, for now I am eschewing my preference for strong tea in favor of delicious but weak tea. I’m just about finished brewing my first cup of the morning.
And what a morning it is! Even in Seattle, these completely overcast days are uncommon. Oh, and I’m only saying this at a few minutes shy of nine o’clock in the morning. I don’t know what it will be like in six hours, or even one. Yesterday I woke up at seven thirty and thought I was in for a treat, only for it to be sunny by the time I went out an hour later.
Today, though…today looks more promising. With an inch of rain forecast, and as many as two more inches tonight, I expect these clouds to tarry a while. I love it when they’re so thick that it blunts the daylight, allowing me to turn on some of the lights in my apartment. Lights on an overcast day are one of those special pleasures in life, complemented only by fine tea and a chance to sit down and write in the ol’ journal.
I dreamed for over an hour in the same general setting: A massive hotel. There were different storylines. At one point, I was in the midst of some post-apocalyptic geek rave. There were people partying everywhere, music and noise and trash. Everyone had their laptops, and there were plenty of televisions and other electronics, so the hotel had so many wires all over the place that it looked like the Borg were visiting. I remember mentally criticizing the old hotel for not anticipating the Internet when it originally wired the place. In the midst of this techno-carnage, I was interacting with a thin, small female who reminded me of (but was not) V. “Kawasaki Mitsubishi” Matsumoto, one of my high school’s valedictorians. I was completely unhappy with her for not being Kendra, but at the same time both of us felt disconnected from the crowd and didn’t want to let the other down, so I finally suggested that we go find a nice sofa somewhere, take our shirts off, cover up under a blanket, and watch a movie. She agreed, but, dreams being what they are, we ended up in a LAN conference. I remember being disappointed enough at being subjected to that kind of inanity that it actually woke me up. “I don’t have to keep dreaming about this,” I thought to myself.
But actually I did. After a bathroom break and a glass of water, I went back to sleep and was in the same hotel, where I had other adventures. At one point I was in a room packed full of people who were getting their blood pressure taken. (Kind of like one of those doctor’s stands at a street festival.) One of the people, who reminded me of Joe Rib, had had extraordinarily good blood pressure after running a marathon earlier in the evening. In reality it would have been low enough to kill him. Dreams being a land of contrast, now his blood pressure had gone up to something higher-this time high enough to kill him: The lower number was 210. Somebody else got theirs taken, but when I it came my turn, the doctor was gone and nobody left was allowed to administer the test. Missed out again!
One of the interesting things about this hotel was that, on the middle floors-I was never on the lower floors except during that LAN conference, where there were lots of windows looking out into the dim blue of gloaming, a silhouetted black coastline, and the sea-many of the corridors had views of lower corridors…as if the hotel was in the shape of a very right racing oval and you could look out the window literally ten feet or so and onto the floor below you. (And only the floor below you; it’s strange how dream physics work.) This led to several confusing moments when I thought I had a view onto places that I had been earlier in my dream. I’m leaving a lot out of the dream, for lack of remembering it, so think of it as “you see someplace else every time you look out a window.”
Finally, at the end, I was getting out of the elevator with some classmates from my childhood. Roy was there, and Derek from high school, I think, as well as others. This time I was the odd person out of the group. I thought the door to Roy’s room was right around the corner from the elevator, but two others started running the other way, down a very long corridor. Since the upper floors of the hotel were a conventional square layout, with a circuit corridor, I figured that I had gotten one corner mixed up with its opposite counterpart. Also figuring that the other people were running to get away from moi, I followed them at top speed. Even so, it wasn’t fast enough. When I got down the corridor and peeked around the corner, I saw that they were gone and the room door was locked and undisturbed. It was the wrong room; I had been right in the first place. The two who had eluded me must have kept running when they got around the corner, down the short side, and then round the corner again to go down the other long corridor. I knew I wouldn’t catch them that way, so I turned around and ran as fast as I could back the way I came. My legs turned out to be flagging. Sometimes in dreams it’s like my body is molasses and I can’t move it all. Not so this time: I was running at quite a clip, but I’ve never been in condition enough to run at a dead sprint for that distance. (It was a long corridor.) So I was sputtering toward the end, slowing down, slowing down, kicking it up, slowing down.
In the end I made it around the corner and to the correct room just as a different person was being let in. I wormed my way into the room. Roy wasn’t there, but it was the right place. I asked if he would be mad if I was in his room. Derek said no, but I think he was being pragmatic about it.
That’s when I woke up. You know, in retrospect, those were some crummy dreams. When I was there, however, the dreams were pleasantly neutral. They also featured many faces from the past, which is usually a net gain.
Today is Veteran’s Day, and technically also Armistice Day. I was clued into this yesterday when visiting the bank (the teller told me that they’d have reduced operations today). This morning, I had since forgotten that little detail, but when I looked out from my balcony, I saw that the Space Needle had its huge flag up.
“What the heck is their flag-oh yeah! Veteran’s Day!”
Too bad; visibility is poor right now, so the flag is hard to see. It’s a huge flag, by the way, about two stories tall. Speaking of American flags, I think I mentioned that Seattle is having a run on them. What I didn’t mention is that the Republican parts of America are also having a run on guns. Jeez…
Human culture in America has changed a lot in the last century, which causes Veteran’s Day to become something of a puzzle. Veteran’s Day is a commemoration of those who have served in uniform in defense of the country. Except for Labor Day, and, if you want to be picky, Presidents’ Day, America has no comparable holiday to commemorate those who have served in any other job. Some say that this is because the work of the military makes possible the work of the nation. Some say that this is because you’re not very likely to get shot and killed in most other lines of work. I could quibble with both of those claims, but that these claims exist at all-much like the holiday itself-is a testament to the glorification of violence and the desire for physical supremacy that humanity has exhibited (often by necessity) since time immemorial. Nowadays, however, the borders of the country have long been peaceful. The world is passing into a new era. As a result, there are more and more people like my friend Michael, who is so disconnected from the mechanical and natural aspects of the humanity of the past as to be almost nonchalant about them, and who would be genuinely puzzled at the existence of such a holiday as Veteran’s Day were they not also capable of cynically dismissing the passions of other human beings. I too am mostly (though not completely) disconnected from the mechanical and natural aspects of the world, but I have always taken an interest in history, which makes up somewhat for my lack of association. I can therefore understand why we might have a Veteran’s Day, even if I personally, as I said, might quibble that this underplays the contributions of people who have served our country in other ways-often at greater peril or suffering. But how long will it be until even somebody like me finds Veteran’s Day to be an awkward highlight?
I’m not saying we should undo the holiday. That’s not the right way to go about embracing change. Veteran’s Day means a lot to many people, maybe even to me, and taking their holiday away is foolish division in any case. I would, however, like to see the culture begin to catch up with the times by highlighting other aspects as our emerging society as well as those of the society gone by. Of course, this sort of stuff usually only works from the bottom up. When enough people are living in the new society rather than the old one, I suspect our national culture will begin to reflect people’s new worldview. But for today, I sure am glad that America never got conquered by the Huns or any of that, and I thank my armed forces for their service. I sure wouldn’t want to have to carry a 70-pound backpack in the 120-degree summers of Iraq. If it came to the draft, I’d try and get a station at the South Pole.
Incidentally, here’s a Josh Prediction you can Take to the Bank (if we have any banks left by the time your investment matures): The military draft, per se, is probably not coming back anytime soon. However, look for some kind of compulsory national service. If Obama’s presidency does achieve FDR status, I can’t imagine there not being some major push for service-presumably applying to high school or possibly college graduates.
Also speaking of Josh Predictions, you’ll recall I wrote this about two weeks ago:
I've counted up all the battleground electoral votes, and have arrived at an absolute best case scenario for Tuesday. The magic number is 426 electoral votes. In my mind that is the absolute upper limit for how many votes Obama may win in his likely national sweep. To get there, we'd have to win absolutely everything in play, including the long-shots of Montana, North Dakota, Louisiana, Arizona (!), Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia, as well as winning all of the likelier states such as Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada.
On the other end of the spectrum, Obama may well fall short in any of the likelier states, except possibly Virginia which I think he has just about locked up. If that happens, Obama will only win 288 votes. If the unthinkable happens and he loses Virginia as well, that goes down to 275, which in my mind represents Obama's worst case scenario.
A much likelier number, I think, is somewhere in the range of 364 to 376, with Obama winning all of the aforementioned “likelier” states plus either of Missouri or Indiana-both worth 11 votes-plus one more state from the long-shot category. That's if turnout is in line with realistic expectations. If we get a bombshell turnout, then Obama will run the table.
In any event, it's likely to be a short night for John McCain: It only takes 270 electoral votes to get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Obama won all of my “likelier states,” including to my surprise both Ohio and Florida, which I had been deeply skeptical of all year and right through till the end. (It’s worth noting that we only won Ohio because fewer Republicans voted; the same number of Democrats voted as in 2004. The only silver lining is that Ohio’s population has dropped since 2004, so the percentage is a bit higher.) Of the “long-shots”, he only won Indiana, and that by a hair’s breadth. Still, I nailed the electoral count, predicting “364 to 376” when he ended up with 365-one vote for every day of the year.
So, did I become smart all of a sudden? Not really; I just knew who to read. Nate Silver was the real genius this year; his projections were on the mark.
Back in May, I had predicted Obama would win 304 electoral votes:
Barack Obama: 304
Washington
Oregon
California
Montana
New Mexico
Colorado
Minnesota
Iowa
Wisconsin
Illinois
Michigan
North Carolina
Virginia
Washington, DC
Pennsylvania
New York
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Rhode Island
New Jersey
Delaware
Maryland
Hawaii
So how smart am I? Well, on the number that matters most, I was off by 61 electoral votes. That’s a lot. In terms of the actual states won, however, I did very well. My blind was Ohio and Florida, where I ignored information all year that suggested Obama was competitive. That accounts for 47 of my 61 botched votes. The remaining fourteen came from these states:
Montana, which I had predicted for Obama, went to McCain. Obama was competitive there this year, but only relative to previous Democratic performances. Montana is slowly turning blue, or seems to be, but it isn’t there yet. Colorado, on the other hand, is.
Nevada and Indiana I had projected for McCain, which he lost. I didn’t know about Nevada until later in the year, and Indiana was so truly a squeaker victory that I can forgive myself for getting it wrong. (In other words, I very nearly got it right.) Then again, the same applies to North Carolina, which Obama won almost as narrowly as he won Indiana.
I predicted Obama would get a higher share of the popular vote than he eventually did. However, I underestimated his margins. If you look at the states he won, he won 262 electoral votes by cushions of nine points or more. Indeed, most of his victories were double-digit, and he won several (including California) by nearly two-to-one margins. On McCain’s side, only the sparsely populated Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah were so imbalanced. What this means is that Obama’s electoral vote structural strength was fairly poor, in relation to the raw popular vote. In other words, by taking away from the surpluses of people who gave Obama super-majorities in some states, there were enough people overall who voted for him that, if they had been relocated to other states, Obama could have carried practically every state in the Union. He won big.
All in all, my predictions were okay. You can read all of them by following the link. They were not satisfactory, though. Had Obama done as well as I thought he would do just days before the election, my predictions would have fared worse. Hopefully I’ll know enough to do better in 2012.
In other political news, Darcy Burner lost her race. This is a shame. After two defeats, the 8th District seems closed to her now. I wish Darcy and her family well in whatever move she decides to make next.
Let’s shift gears and talk about yesterday. There are three random bits from yesterday that I have to share:
1) As I was walking home from the bank, I crossed paths with three people who were walking the other way. I heard a snippet of their conversation: “Thank you for your fecal sample, ma’am.” And they passed out of range before I could hear any more. Hrm!
2) Not related to No. 1: I tried a McGriddle for the first time yesterday. I had won two breakfast sandwiches in McDonald’s Monopoly contest, so I redeemed them both of them yesterday since I happened to be on First Hill. I don’t much like McDonald’s breakfast food, but with free coupons and a low food supply at home, I went for it. Good thing I did! They’re onto something with these McGriddles. The one I had was tasty and filling. I would eat one right now if it didn’t mean a thirty-minute walk there, up a big hill, and a thirty-minute walk back.
3) Monday’s Term of the Day is slosh baffle. It’s exactly what it sounds like (it baffles slosh), used everywhere from automobiles to the space program, but it has got to be one of the most fun things to say, ever. “Shut yer slosh baffle!” “Quit yer slosh baffling!” “Full power to the slosh baffle!” “Well, baffle my slosh!” I love it. Slosh Baffle Forever!
That is a suitable note on which to end this entry. =)