I know we’ve been pretty heavy on the serious stuff lately, but it is timely and necessary.  It’s official - Obama spanked McCain last night and will be the 44th President of the United States.

In an attempt to stay unbiased (I’m really not) and out of the touchy issues of this campaign, I give you a really interesting statistical site: FiveThirtyEight.com.  This guy has a pretty interesting story, Nate Silver used to be a baseball statistician and is now pretty much the up and coming name in political statistics reporting. Anybody that developed the most accurate polling data in polling history in his spare time is pretty impressive to me. His projection: 348.6 Obama, 189 McCain. Real life: 349 Obama, 159 McCain - with about 30 more coming his way.

He uses his baseball experience to balance out the polls using demographic data and using historical data of each poll to determine outcomes of political races. His site simulates elections a staggering 10,000 times a day in order to give a continuous up to date probability of the outcome. Oh, and if you didn’t know, 538 is the number of electors in the electoral college.

Look forward to some hope and optimism injected into our country, predicted by Nate Silver. Maybe he can give me stats on lotto numbers next. Or maybe wants to go to Vegas.

We’re one day away from a historical presidential election. Regardless of who wins, history will be made. Either the first African-American President or the first female Vice-President, both of which are outstanding (and long overdue) achievements by our country, regardless of my agreement with either’s political ideology.

Through record early voting turnout and a long fought campaign by both sides, I for one, am ready for this long series of shenanagins to be over. Major polls show Obama in the lead, some as much as double digits. Here in Texas, my vote is pretty irrelevant (partial electoral voting is for another day) because Texas is going for McCain, pretty much for sure.  Regardless of this and the voting procedures in your state, take time and go participate in the political process, it is what makes our country great and will continue to do so in the future.

GO VOTE!

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