Nate Silver, Superstar

I just wanted to give a shout out to 538's dead on analysis as of shortly after last Tuesday that it looked like, despite trailing by over 3,000 votes out of only about 200,000+ cast, that when all the as yet uncounted votes were tabulated, Mark Begich would beat Ted "Convicted Felons Can't Vote, but They Can Run for the Senate" Stevens in Alaska. In fact, Begich just took the lead and all indications are that his lead will only grow.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/begich-leads-by-814-going-into-thursday.html

So, the Democrats are up to 58 seats in the Senate now, and 538 has similarly predicated that a recount in MN is likely to give Al "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough and Goshdarnnit, People Like ME" Franken the victory in MN, which would bring the Dems up to 59 and set up a steel cage deathmatch for 60 in the GA runoff election. Should be interesting, but 59 is probably more than enough anyway for Democrats to avoid almost any filibuster because there are Republicans like Snowe and Collins from ME and Spector from PA that are likely to at least not fillibuster most things Democrats want to do.