What I'll be looking at tomorrow night

One day out from the election, here's what I'll be watching for:

1) Pennsylvania and Ohio. Obama has solid leads in polls from both states. If those polls are accurate, and if undecided voters break for Obama even by 1/3, he's got those states.

2) Virginia. With Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia in his pocket, Obama could take a lot of losses for the rest of the night and still come out way ahead. With Pennsylvania and Virginia only in his pocket, Obama could afford to lose Florida and Ohio by picking up some of the smaller Bush states like Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa.

Why I'm not betting on Florida: its just too unreliable. For two reasons. First, the polls show the state within a couple of points. Yes, all across the country black voters have been turning out in record numbers for Obama, and that would theoretically boost Obama's chances in Florida. But - I'll be blunt - I don't trust those votes to get counted either accurately, fairly or in a timely manner in Florida. They just don't have a good track record.

Why Democrats are afraid: the Bush campaign teams were ruthless in their voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts. For a large part of my adult lifetime, that has been the reality of our electoral fight. We fear complacency on the part of our voters who have, historically, been unreliable, and we fear a fix where the fight is close and crucial, like Ohio and Florida.

The Obama campaign has given us some reassurance. By widening the ground game so that the election does not hinge on two states, the campaign has, perhaps, spread the field too wide to be meddled with.

So we go forth unto election day filled with cautious optimism.

And in California we have a nauseating anxiety in our stomachs, waiting waiting waiting - hoping - to see Prop. 8 defeated. My friend the minister-in-training says he's out trying to spread the word: pro-8 is NOT pro-gay. We wish him God speed in the fight to keep discrimination out of our constitution.

Voting anti-GOP, not pro-Dem

I've long been of the belief that the country's Democratic-leaning pivot this election season can only be seen as a rejection of Republican leadership. I do not think the electorate has somehow found Progressive religion.

I've been telling anyone who cares to listen that the Dems had better not see this election as a mandate giving them "political capital".

The Dems need to walk away from this election seeing it as an opportunity to show the American people what we can do. We need to work not only to make their lives better, but to make Washington work, to avoid grandstanding and divisive politics and restore the better angels of our nature.

I see signs that the Obama campaign is thinking the same way. Take this piece in Chris Cillizza's blog, The Fix. Cillizza reports that the Obama campaign sees Florida as an important symbol that they cannot walk away from, even if they don't need the state for an electoral win. Cillizza reports:

In the last few weeks, Obama has sent his top two field generals -- "Sunny" Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes -- to direct ground operations in the state.

Surrogates for Obama are also flooding the state. Last night, following his 30-minute national informercial, the Illinois senator appeared alongside former President Bill Clinton at a midnight rally in Kissimmee. Then today came the news that former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, will make stops in West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow to lead early vote rallies.

What does this mean? It means that the Obama campaign is not willing to write Florida and its diverse population off. It means that they feel they need to keep working to show they care about Florida and want to represent Florida. That is the beauty of the 50 state strategy: it backs up Obama's talk about our not being "a red state America or a blue state America, but a United States of America."

Right on.