Peace (and hope) be with you

I'm off to the hospital today to get that other pesky knee replaced. I've sent in my absentee ballot and will watch the election returns from my hospital room. I hope I'm not too groggy to make sense of what I'm seeing, and I hope that I can remember the names of the battleground states to watch for.

I am full of hope--for my knee, for this election, and for this country.

There's one last thing--this campaign has been so full of memorable words, phrases, and issues (short- and long-lived, meaningful and meaningless)--that I would like to list some of them. In a couple of cases, I've given you the source of the quote, but I'm sure you can work out the rest for yourselves.

We don't want to forget this stuff. Feel free to add to the list via your comments.

******

bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

maverick

I have the scars to prove it

7 houses? 8 houses?

my friends

Give me a B and an A and an R-A-C-K, O-B-A-M-A (~Obama Girl)

the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull

Willow, Trig, Track, and Bristol

on day one

I need to know if she really thinks that dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she's gonna have the nuclear codes (~Matt Damon)

pundits

gotcha' journalism

Walmart moms

Caribou Barbie

We are not afraid to get maverick-y in there and ruffle feathers and not got to allow that. And also, too, the great Ronald Reagan (~Tina Fey)

battleground states

lipstick on a pig

flag pin

terrorist fist jab

"In what respect, Charlie?"

Bill Ayers

my friends

eroding the fabric of society

when the phone rings at three in the morning

the Vice President is in charge of the Senate

voter registration drive

thanks, but no thanks, on that Bridge to Nowhere

the change we need

politics of hope

he's measuring the drapes

these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America

gosh darn it

you betcha

wink

what is it exactly that the VP does every day?

may I call you Joe?

raise your taxes

say it ain't so, Joe

Joe the Plumber

Tito the Builder

Joe the Biden

that one

lower your taxes

I can see Russia

when you think about it, Alaska is also near the North Pole, so she must also be friends with Santa (~Jon Stewart)

$150,000 wardrobe

Neiman Marxist

the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick, Prada shoes, a Gucci handbag, and a few $3,000 suits

pro-America areas of this great nation

I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing

can I get back to ya on that?

Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America

misses palin! i want to fly into ur Airspase! misses palin! i want to reer my little Head! (~Vlad and Friend)

cocktail party Republicans

birth certificate?

the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should

guilt by association

broken politics in Washington

I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also

failed policies

why can't I just eat my waffle?

my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage

buying the election

diva

palling around with terrorists

tax plan

ACORN

voter fraud

choose our better history

my friends

country first

scare tactics

making a big election about small things

Reverend Wright

there are no red states; there are no blue states; there is the United States of America

voted with President Bush 90% (or 95%) of the time

our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of

95% of Americans will get a tax cut under my plan

spreading the wealth around

class warfare

media bias

liberal media

a nation of whiners

he's not ready

he's not ready yet

he's a Muslim

he's a socialist

he's a Marxist

my friends

Redistributionist-in-Chief

Khalidi

breaking the country's dependence on foreign oil

voted to teach sex education to kindergarteners

no one is pro-abortion

the fundamentals of our economy are strong

going rogue

grandfather was an African farmer

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story

in no other country on Earth is my story even possible

we need to internalize this idea of excellence

focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition

one of those defining moments

the change we need is coming

change happens from the bottom up

we are the ones we've been waiting for

we are the change that we seek

now is not the time for small plans

the promise of America

now is the time

yes we can

yes we can

If the Whole World Could Vote, Who Would Win--Obama or McCain?

The Economist.com has opened our U.S. Presidential election to the world, at least online. If everyone in the world had a vote, online at the Economist's site, that counted in a worldwide electoral college, who would win--Obama or McCain?

First, they explain our own existing electoral college, a confusing concept to many. Then they explain how they set up the theoretical world electoral college and how they apportioned the votes. Here are those explanations, quoted in full.

America's electoral college
All democratic systems have their quirks, and America's is no exception. The electoral college is a 200-year-old institution. According to its rules, Americans do not vote directly for their presidents. Instead they cast a ballot to decide who wins their state's electoral-college votes. The number of these votes is fixed by the number of people the state sends to Congress, which in turn is based on its population. All states have a minimum of three votes and there are 538 electoral-college votes up for grabs in total. The presidential candidate who secures the most electoral-college votes ends up in the White House. The loser invariably ends up on day-time television shows.

Critics of the electoral-college system say it can produce a president who has lost the popular vote, as happened in 2000. They also complain that the winner-takes-all system employed by most states leads candidates to focus on a small number of "swing states" and ignore more reliably partisan ones. There have consequently been many attempts to reform the electoral-college system—over 700 so far—though until now nobody has suggested that the entire world be included.

The Global Electoral College
The Economist has redrawn the electoral map to give all 195 of the world's countries (including the United States) a say in the election's outcome. As in America, each country has been allocated a minimum of three electoral-college votes with extra votes allocated in proportion to population size. With over 6.5 billion people enfranchised, the result is a much larger electoral college of 9,875 votes. But rally your countrymen—a nation must have at least ten individual votes in order to have its electoral-college votes counted.

There are few countries whose votes in the Global Electoral College are a foregone conclusion. So the winner is unlikely to be decided by a small number of "swing countries". Rather, they will have to cobble together a coalition of small, medium and large nations. (A campaign stop in Beijing is recommended, as well as a tour of Africa.) Voting in the Global Electoral College will close at midnight London time on November 1st, when the candidate with most electoral-college votes will be declared the winner.

Click here to see who is ahead in the worldwide voting.