There’s no reason to credit the exit polls too much, but if CNN’s exit polls are at all accurate, Obama may end up taking Indiana in addition to Missouri, which would give him 375 electoral votes by the end of the night.  If New Mexico’s CNN exit poll is reliable, and assuming that New Mexico backs the popular vote winner at around the same level that he receives nationally as it usually does, Obama is looking at a solid 55%.

Ross:

So while my rational mind expects an easy Obama win, as of this morning my irrational mind is suddenly convinced that come nine PM tonight, some furrow-browed announcer will be remarking on his this is much, much closer than anyone expected …

With the exception of 2000, which was freakishly, abnormally close in the one state that mattered, the results have broadly matched up with the latest pre-election polls.  2004 was very close in the decisive state, but the candidate leading in the national polls won.  2006 matched up more or less with what people told pollsters about their Congressional preferences.  The last two presidential elections have chastened us to refrain from making bold pronouncements on Election Night before the ballots are counted, but there is not really much reason to expect that voting patterns from ’06 dramatically changed again in a pro-Republican direction.  If anything, the Democratic margin of victory ought to be larger this year than last time.  I predicted an eight-point Obama win a few days ago, and I am beginning to think that I may have been too conservative in my estimate of how badly McCain will lose.  

The anchors and reporters tonight are going to make the outcome seem as uncertain as they can to keep people tuned to their stations for as long as possible.  Nothing could be worse for them and their sponsors, as a matter of doing business, than a lopsided, enormous victory by one side, which is what we have every reason to expect tonight.  Exit polls are being kept under wraps, as they should be while millions are still voting, but if they weren’t I think there would not be much suspense tonight about any of the results, except perhaps whether Obama does or does not take Georgia and North Dakota.  I don’t think he will, but throughout the campaign I and a lot of other people have underestimated what he could do, which suggests that the results are going to be even more favorable to him than anyone expects.

And once the media is no longer acting as Obama’s Praetorian Guard, Palin won’t be subjected to this relentless slagging. ~Robert Stacy McCain

In other words, shortly before the end of time Palin will start getting more positive coverage. 

It’s not clear to me why the following anecdote is supposed to persuade skeptics that Palin is a phenom:

Palin and her husband Todd came out on stage and the governor had changed into a T-shirt with the Shippensburg University joke slogan, “Ship Happens.” I jotted that down on my notepad.

When she’d finished giving her short speech, the crowd rushed the stage for handshakes and autographs and I pushed forward to get some photos. Palin worked her way toward where I was standing. I figured, “What the heck? Why not?” and handed up my notepad for her to sign. She looked at the pad, saw where I’d written the T-shirt slogan, then looked at me and with a laugh pointed to her shirt, saying, “Ship! Ship!” — just to make sure I had it right.

Think about that. Amid a madhouse of fans and autograph-seekers, after a day of campaigning, she deciphered my scrawled note, recognized the potential misunderstanding, and cheerfully played it off. A minor incident, but displaying a keen perception that some others who’ve met her have likewise noticed.

Unless I am missing something here, this means that Palin’s ability to read his handwriting and recognize the potential confusion created by the not-so-subtle pun is proof of her keen perception.  Maybe his handwriting is particularly hard to read, in which case it’s clear that Palin is the next Catherine the Great.

A few years ago, threatening to freeze dodgy Russian companies out of the developed world’s capital markets would have been a real threat. Now, if they find London, New York, and Frankfurt unwelcoming, they can turn to the exchanges in Dubai, Mumbai and Shanghai. ~Edward Lucas

Well, yes, that’s true.  This is what comes from globalization.  It means that there are many more centers of wealth and power than there used to be, which reduces the leverage of any one center or group of centers over weaker or poorer states.  This is why promoting globalization and hegemony makes no sense–the former steadily undermines the latter.  As wealth and power are more widely distributed, the absolute advantage that advanced industrial democracies possess has been sharply reduced.  This is not to celebrate or lament this development, which the cheerleaders of global free trade and neoliberalism have done more to bring about than most others in the West.  It is an odd time to start complaining about the rise of other economic and political powers when this is what globalization ultimately had to mean.

Lucas says later:

The Kremlin’s message to Europe is cold and confident: you need us more than we need you.

This is an exaggeration, but there is some truth to it.  An exporter of natural resources needs markets, and to the extent that its economy is heavily dependent on revenues from one or two exports it is vulnerable to market fluctuations more than the consumers, but when it comes to something as basic as energy the consumers cannot easily do without the exporter nation that provides so many of their supplies.  Russia wants and needs foreign investment, but Europeans will need oil and gas more.

Lucas’ most unpersuasive and strained claim:

The key to the West’s future security is the security of the Baltic states.

Yes, how did the West survive almost three hundred years of Russian control of the Baltics?  This is like saying that Russia’s future security is the security of Greenland.  It is pretty much a crazy thing to say. 

Lucas goes on:

So what does Estonia do then? America may offer moral support, but is it going to risk a Third World War with Russia to protect Estonia? Such a course of events is not inevitable, or even likely. But it is not as preposterous as it should be.

Indeed, it should be entirely preposterous, as Estonia should never have been admitted to NATO, because America is certainly not going to risk WWIII to protect Estonia.  The sooner that everyone understands that, and the less they talk about new Cold Wars, the better.

What is says is that anti-communism no longer matters. Religion and culture (witness Kevin Williamson’s anti-elitist sneer above) now drive American conservatism; foreign policy takes a way back seat. ~Democracy in America

This is, to put it kindly, a very strange interpretation of some of the complaints and attacks against Anne Applebaum’s regret-filled endorsement of Obama.  First, let me say that Applebaum’s piece is a good example of the sort of thing I have been talking about when I said:

Many have hedged their Obama endorsement with paeans to the “old” McCain whom they once liked and their alleged Obama endorsements are filled with disappointment that McCain has let them down, as if to say, “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.” 

It is true that anticommunism is obviously no longer the glue that holds conservatives of different strands together, and it would be fair to say that anti-jihadism does not quite inspire the same unity, especially when one is told that anti-jihadism is inseparable from support for the war in Iraq.  That being said, I don’t see how anyone looks at mainstream conservatism and the Republican coalition today and concludes that “foreign policy takes a way back seat” to religion and culture.  During the campaign, it has been central, and this has been true of major and minor Republican candidates alike.  Ron Paul’s dissenting presidential campaign was focused primarily on foreign policy questions, and McCain’s nomination is almost unthinkable without foreign policy arguments being at the heart of mainstream conservatism.  The one and perhaps only meaningful litmus test was support for the “surge.”  That doesn’t mean that the arguments that circulate among mainstream conservatives are good arguments, but they clearly take priority over everything else.  Until the financial crisis hit, virtually every other issue was framed in terms of national security and sticking it to those lousy Iranians/Russians/Venezuelans/whoever.  To some extent, despite her lack of foreign policy knowledge, the Palin choice was a roundabout acknowledgement of the centrality of foreign policy to the campaign because her presumed energy expertise would help achieve–so she keeps telling us–chimerical energy independence (thus supposedly thwarting the ambitions of Putin, Chavez, et al.). 

Palin was a symbolic nod to social conservatives, yes, but even the themes they have had her using show an emphasis on foreign affairs and national security.  In choosing Palin, McCain was freed by and large to ignore social issues, and for the most part he has ignored them; choosing Palin “proves” that he accepts pro-lifers and social conservatives into his camp, so their issues do not even require that much in the way of lip service.   

The bit that I found particularly amusing about the one denunciation was the description of Applebaum as “Europe-dwelling,” as if this were still supposed to be considered a moral failing.  The phrasing made it sound as if Williamson, the one penning the attack, was equating Europe to some sort of hovel or cave, which I suppose must have been the point.  Oh, no, a Europe-dweller!  This is supposed to be an insult?

Some early reviews of Quantum of Solace are not promising (via Clive Davis), but should we really trust the judgement of someone who liked the horrid theme song?  Judging from the criticism and the trailer, I strongly suspect that your response to this new Bond film will be very similar to your response to the Greengrass-directed parts of the Bourne trilogy.  Either you will think that this is what spy flicks are supposed to be like, or you will find it chaotic and abhorrent.  It may also be the case that as the novelty of the Daniel Craig Bond wears off there will not be as much interest in the future sequels.  Despite Casino Royale‘s success at the box office, it is probably just a matter of time before nostalgia for the formulaic Bond films sets in and there will be demands to boot the rebooted Bond. 

Nor will we ever have the luxury of withdrawing from the world. If we tried, the world would simply come to us – as it did on 9/11. ~Ralph Peters

Because prior to 9/11, we had been withdrawing from the world so much.  This is the sort of idiocy that is normally reserved to such masters as Karl Rove, who offered this bit of insight earlier this year:

Well, we were not involved in the world before 9/11, and look what happened.

After all, we had only bombed, invaded or deployed forces to a measly six other countries in the previous twelve years, which does not begin to count the mere scores of countries where we have had bases.  Clearly, we were slacking off when it came to international meddling.  I mean, at that point we hadn’t funded a guerrilla insurgency on the other side of the planet for years!  Yes, the lesson of the last twenty years must be that withdrawing from our positions overseas is the luxury we cannot afford. 

Perpetual pursuit of hegemony is the only option that interventionists want to permit Americans to have, which is why there is no meaningful alternative on offer from either of the major parties on the ballot tomorrow.   

P.S.  As part of his dedicated effort to pen his third horrible foreign policy column in as many tries, Peters throws in an “Islamic fascist” reference, taking us back to the good old days of 2006-07 when this nonsensical description seemed to be everywhere.

Ralph Peters was so close to painting a realistic future scenario of an Obama foreign policy, but his shameless bias in favor of the Democratic candidate kept him from facing up to the inevitable appeasement that is bound to follow Evo Morales’ annexation of Texas.  His refusal to acknowledge the rise of the Bolivian menace is just what you’d expect from such a blatant Obama apologist.   

P.S.  Didn’t Peters already discredit himself on foreign policy enough this year?

But the August war in Georgia and the ongoing economic and financial collapse mark a tipping point. For the first time in generations, a mood of patriotism, jingoism and staunch Russian nationalism have become pervasive among even educated Russians who once considered themselves pro-Western liberals. Yes, most Russians have been reflexively patriotic all along. But Russia has seldom in living memory been more nationalistic—and seldom have Russia’s brightest and best found themselves more in agreement with the people—as well as the Kremlin—on their country’s greatness. In the spring of 2008, 65 percent of Russians felt “generally positive” about the United States, according to the Yuri Levada opinion polls center in Moscow. But after the war in Georgia, that indicator dropped to just 7 percent. At the same time, Putin’s approval ratings have climbed eight points between July and September to 88 percent; Dmitry Medvedev‘s increased 13 points, to 83 percent. ~Newsweek

That surge in hostility towards the United States is remarkable, but not at all surprising.  We cannot as a matter of official policy and establishment consensus opinion vilify Russia for years and then treat Russia as the villain in what is at best a very murky, complicated conflict and expect there to be no consequences.  Throughout Russian history, when Russia has faced an external challenge it has worked to the advantage of the state, as memories of past conflicts are mapped onto new ones and there is a strong nationalist impulse to solidarity with the state in response to the challenge.  This is a common theme in nationalist politics, but it is strongest among nations that have both old and recent memories of foreign invasions.  What I have continued to find so frustrating and perplexing about Western expressions of antipathy for Russia’s legitimate interests is the complete lack of comprehension of the political reaction this real and perceived hostility would cause inside Russia.  After each provocation, Russian nationalism grows stronger, Putinism becomes more entrenched and U.S.-Russian relations keep deteriorating, and then Westerners complain about Russia “turning away from the West”–how can Westerners not see their own part in this dynamic? 

If Russia is becoming increasingly nationalistic, and is now more so than at any time since the end of the Cold War, it is no small part because Westerners have spent the better part of the last twenty years making demands, acting provocatively and ignoring Russian interests.  If liberal forces have been completely routed and authoritarianism advances, it is at least in part because Putin and Medvedev offer the Russian public a means for political expression of their frustrations and interests and these figures can plausibly portray liberals as excessively pro-Western and their Western sympathizers as pretty clearly anti-Russian.  If the interests of Russians and their ability to live in a freer society are the concer, why continue to play into the hands of authoritarian populists and the forces of nationalism by adopting ever-more confrontational and anti-Russian positions?  When a foreign government berates and vilifies America, or even just criticizes our government, most Americans take a dim view of that foreign government regardless of whether the criticism has merit and regardless of their own political views.  Why would we expect Russians to be any different?  When the founder of Yabloko and other members of the liberal opposition are siding with the modern Kremlin, Western sympathizers with Russian liberalism–who are also typically advocates of democracy promotion and NATO expansion–have done something wrong.  Even though this may ultimately be for the best in weakening the association between Russian liberals and the West, clearly any “freedom agenda” Washington wants to promote has gone badly awry when the last Russian liberals want nothing to do with the West.  For my part, I think that internal Russian affairs are the business of Russians, and America’s concern should be to pursue as much cooperation with the Russians as our just interests allow, but it seems inescapable that if you are interested in promoting liberalization inside Russia there could not be a more counterproductive approach than the current method of threaten-and-insult.  

Attending a Russian church, I know many Russians and Russian-Americans, and there is complete unanimity from everything I have heard from my friends that Russia is the aggrieved party in this conflict, Saakashvili is a war criminal and the American politicians who have paid court to him are appalling.  Electorally, this means opposition to McCain, who is rightly considered the worst of the lot.  There seems to be universal disgust with the news coverage of the war in Georgia.  As the results from the survey cited in the article show, clearly this is not simply a function of members of the diaspora taking a harder line than people in the home country as is sometimes the case with diasporan communities.