The canvassing board went through most of the challenges yesterday. Doing so whittled Al Franken's lead down from 252 votes to a mere 48 votes or 0.0002%. This is an incredibly close election. However, if instant runoff voting had been used, then the 14% of the voters whose first choice was Dean Barkley could have indicated a second choice and we probably wouldn't have had this mess.
The 1600 improperly rejected absentee ballots have not yet been examined, but in Minnesota, absentee ballots tend to favor Democrats. However, the state supreme court said the two candidates had to agree on a standard for doing so. Seems unlikely to happen. How are they going to decide? One option might be this. Since both candidates are Jewish and it is Chanukah, maybe they could spin a dreidel to decide whose standard to use (a dreidel is a small, four-sided top used by children on Chanukah to gamble with raisins, nuts, or chocolate coins).
President-elect Barack Obama has been photographed shirtless in Hawaii, where he is on vacation. He is not the first President to be photographed shirtless. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Lyndon Johnson were as well, as shown below.
A census bureau projection shows that Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania will each lose a seat in the House after the 2010 census. Five states will gain a seat: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Utah. Texas will gain three seats. Along with seats go electoral votes. Based on the 2008 election, blue states lose six electoral votes and red states lose one electoral vote. Blue states gain two electoral votes and red states gain six. In addition, several other states might gain or lose a House seat, but it is close and final allocation depends on population trends in the next year.
CQ Politics has released a table rating every member of Congress on how often he or she voted with the President and how often he or she voted the party line. Eight House Democrats and one House Republican voted the party line 100% of the time. The least loyal Democrat is Nick Lampson (D-TX) who voted with the Democrats 57% of the time (but it didn't help--he was defeated for reelection. The least loyal Republican is Wayne Gilchrest with a 65% loyalty score. He was beaten in a primary.
One the Senate side, senators Allard, Ensign, Kyl, and DeMint had 100% party loyalty records. No Democrats did. The least loyal Republican is Olympia Snowe (39%) and the least loyal Democrat is Evan Bayh (65%).
A PPP (D) poll shows Denver mayor John Hickenlooper to be a stronger candidate than Rep. John Salazar to hold Ken Salazar's Senate seat in 2010. Hickenlooper beats former governor Bill Owens (R) by 14 points and Rep. Tom Tancredo by 17 points. Salazar's numbers are 9 and 13 points, respectively.
If Sarah Palin wants to be a senator, the job is hers for the taking. If she were to run against Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in a senatorial primary, she would win by 24 points according to a Research 2000 poll. While Palin's lack of experience was a big issue during her Vice Presidential run, one thing she does have experience at is beating Murkowskis: she defeat Lisa's father, Frank Murkowski, in a Republican primary for the governorship in 2006. Alaska being a fairly reliable Republican state, Republicans generally win elections unless they have been convicted of multiple felonies. So if Palin won the primary, she would coast to election.