• Former Governor Mike Huckabee (AR)
• Former Governor Mitt Romney (MA)
• Governor Sarah Palin (AK)
• Governor Tim Pawlenty (MN)
• Governor Bobby Jindal (LA)
• Governor Charlie Crist (FL)

Huckabee will be in Iowa and South Carolina to promote his new book, Do the Right Thing. New campaign slogan? Maybe. One of the first stops he has planned is Cedar Rapids Iowa and Des Moine, Iowa. Iowa sprung Huckabee forward for Decision 2008. South Carolina was the first “Deep South” primary that Huckabee lost.

The prospect of Palin has increased with her new appearance to national politics. Although it is overplayed on news networks, Palin would bring out the conservative base of the party. She has stated she has no intention to run, but stated it is not out of the realm of possibilities.

No matter who becomes the first Republican Presidential Candidate, they will face many problems, especially if it is before 2010. 1) Unite the Republican Party from bitterness erupting. 2) Overcome media scrutiny for announcing their candidacy so soon. 3) Create a new platform for the GOP stance on issues that attracts former voters. 4) If nominated, face an incumbent President or Vice-President.

There is no understatement for what has just occured moments ago. Everything we know has changed forever. It is against my personality to behave like this, but no one can comprehend this moment in time unless it is told as it is. We are far from perfect as a nation. We still cannot look beyond racial barriers. However, Obama is now the symbol of the future of our country. There is no present with Obama. Everything he does and represents is for the future. A future where race will be condemned, but the character of that individual. Hopefully, we will not be awed that an African American won the presidency but look at their policies. In the end, congragulations Senator Barack Obama. Welcome to the presidency.

Congress: Democratic Gain

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553#map

6:00 pm: Indiana – it is one of the first states to close early and give immediate results. As a battleground state, Indiana will indicate how the night will turn for Obama or McCain. If the state goes to McCain, Democrats won’t mine as much as if it were Pennsylvania. If Obama wins, the McCain campaign will have a very bad night as there is already a narrow window to 270. If the state is a tie, McCain is going to have to watch the night carefully.

7:00 pm: Virginia – closes at 7:00 pm, but results will probably come at 8:00. If he loses this, we’re 99.9% sure how it’ll turn out. However, if it becomes difficult to call and continues for hours McCain can have a better than expected night.

8:00 pm: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina – the results will probably come in later, but we don’t know. If Obama takes any of these states, McCain needs to be prepared for more losts to follow.

This is only a quick guide for the election. The results will continue through midnight, so it doesn’t end at 8:00 pm.

Anyone can go on Youtube, and look up a video. The surprise is comes when the bar saying “Videos being watched right now,” someone will be watching a video related to the election. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have appeared on various shows such as SNL, Letterman, Leno, Colbert, etc. These appearance make them appear more human and relatable since they are members of our United States Senate ( I doubt anyone reading this personally knows a U.S. Senator). New voters get a new perspective of politics and are engaged learning about new developments.

No matter who wins, history may be looking at us strangely of how we watched this election but the joke will be on them.

I don’t think there’s necessarily a correlation between Warner’s advertising and the pro-Obama polling (as the article suggests). The wording is a bit unfortunate. There will be a lot of Warner-McCain voters (as clearly evidenced by the ~60 points Warner seems to be polling vs. the barely 50 points Obama has been able to muster). However like I reasserted many times in the past, Obama might benefit from the Warner coattails. Warner has incredible support in Southern Virginia (more so that Jim Webb and Tim Kaine – as evidenced by their rather razor sharp election margins), and he might make some voters comfortable enough with voting for a Democrat (even if that Democrat is significantly more liberal than Mark Warner).

Virginia is also important because it (along with Nevada) is Obama’s firewall should McCain somehow win Pennsylvania (This is assuming Obama carries all other Kerry states along with Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico – states where Obama has had some very strong numbers of late). Polls in Virginia close at 7 pm, so there’s a good chance we might know the winner of the election by 8-8:30 pm.

And Mark Warner will definitely win the Senate seat (being vacated John Warner – no relation) against former Gov. Jim Gilmore (Mark Warner had previously defeated Jim Gilmore to become the Governor of Virginia). Warner has repeatedly stated he’ll be the founder of a radical centrist coalition. Warner’s strong bipartisan record and his moderate stances on issues will aid greatly in getting things done in the Senate.

1. The myth of the Bradley Effect - The Bradley Effect is a belief that white voters will claim to vote for the minority candidate but pull the lever for the white candidate. The name stems from former LA Mayor Tom Bradley who ran for Governor. Polls showed him with a slight lead, however he lost the election. Many pundits believe voters couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the African American candidate. The problem with this is, George Deukmejian’s (Deukmejian defeated Bradley) general election pollster claims that the internals showed the race too close to call. In fact, the media picked up on the supposed Bradley victory because the Mervin Field (the state’s top public pollster) predicted so.

1. Reverse Bradley Effect – Barack Obama has in fact over performed in most states rather than vice-versa leading many to believe there’s a reverse Bradley effect in works. There’s an episode in the acclaimed show Practice in which the Bobby Donnell (played by Dylan McDermott) claims a trial in a Suburbia is the best thing to happen to an African American. His rationale was that the white jury members would be swayed more by middle class guilt and move to declare the defendant not guilty. We might be seeing a similar effect in play.
2. High minority turnout - We’re seeing Barack Obama command record support from African Americans (Key to Obama’s victory in Southern states) and Hispanics (Important to the Democrat’s Western Strategy). Barack Obama started to take a lion’s share of the African American vote after it become clear that he was a viable candidate for President (African Americans had previously backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by a 2-1 margin). Hispanics are supporting Sen. Obama despite Republicans putting up one of the most pro-amnesty advocates in either party. This could be attrituted to the fact that minorities increasingly see that anyone can become the President and are inspired by the historic nature of Sen. Obama’s campaign.