One of the most reliable sources for election projections is not a traditional exit poll, it’s in fact the future betting markets! Betfair has put together an amazing chart tracking the national presidential elections by averaging millions of placed around the country. The chart is currently showing Obama so far ahead it’s not even funny, but who knows, there is still a 5-10% chance eh?

Ouch, the hits keep on coming. Though the far right are still in their dreamland that everything is a-ok in McCain / Palin land, everything is not OK. For instance, this weekend we had the shocking news that Palin’s homestate newspaper, The Anchorage Daily News, has endorsed Barack Obama for president of the United States. Well gosh, I guess it’s not all rose petals and moose pies in the great white North.

Highlighting the steady hand and calm-demeanor of Obama, The Anchorage Daily News had some choice words. On Obama

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

On Palin

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

On McCain

Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn’t show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years.

John McCain’s campaign took another odd twist today when they announced that the star of the official election night watch party may only appear briefly in front of his supporters at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. Instead, McCain plans on delivering his post-election remarks to a small group of reporters and invited guests on the hotel lawn.

McCain’s remarks will be piped electronically into the party and media filing center, aides said. Only a small press “pool” — mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and others — will be physically present when he speaks.

Obama, by contrast, plans to address a giant outdoor celebration election night in Chicago’s Grant Park. The event is free and open to the public, but the campaign was charging media organizations a hefty fee for close-in spots on the camera risers and platforms and for cable and wireless Internet at those spots.

That “hefty fee” by the way is commonplace for news organizations at election night viewing parties and rings up to a whopping $935 per press agent. McCain is charging a “hefty fee” of $695 per press agent.

But as Obama spokesman Bill Burton pointed out, “Anyone credentialed for our filing center will also be able to watch the event live and in person, unlike the McCain event.”

Political strategist and guru Charlie Cook had a great article yesterday touching on signs of McCain’s impending defeat on election day. Cook, who has been covering, predicting and involved in political campaigns for several decades, most recently went against the pundits during the Republican primaries by predicting that Rudy Giuliani would not become the Republican nominee. Sheesh, it seems like only yesterday everyone was claiming President Giuliani over the airwaves.

Anyways, here are Cook’s six factors that aren’t good for McCain, emphasis is ours.

First. The metrics of this election argue strongly that this campaign is over, it’s only the memory of many an election that seemed over but wasn’t that is keeping us from closing the book mentally on this one. First, no candidate behind this far in the national polls, this late in the campaign has come back to win. Sure, we have seen come-from-behind victories, but they didn’t come back this far this late.

Second, early voting has made comebacks harder and would tend to diminish the impact of the kind of late-breaking development that might save McCain’s candidacy. With as many as one-third of voters likely to cast their ballot before Election Day, every day more are cast and the campaign is effectively over for them. The longer Obama has this kind of lead and the more votes are cast early, the more voters are out of the pool for McCain.

Third, considering that 89 percent of all voters who identified themselves as Democrats voted for John Kerry four years ago and 93 percent of Republicans cast their ballots for George W. Bush, the switch from parity between the parties to a 10-point Democratic advantage would seem to almost seal this outcome irrespective of the candidates fielded on each side. The unprecedented surges seen in Democratic party registrations in those states that require party affiliations confirm that.

Fourth, just look at the money and spending. With Obama now outspending McCain routinely by margins of 3- and 4-to-1 in advertising in so many states, it’s hard to see how the Arizonan’s campaign can drive a message. For a time, Obama was matching McCain one for one in negative advertising, then spending double or triple on top of that in positive advertising. Now Obama seems primarily doing positive ads, probably the right move given his lead going into this final stretch. Organizationally, it’s hard to find any state where McCain is organized as well as President Bush was four years ago or Obama is today, a product of both money and enthusiasm.

Fifth, while many are talking about the so-called “Bradley effect,” voters telling pollsters that they will vote for an African-American candidate when they won’t, putting aside the question of whether it ever existed, it hasn’t been seen in at least 15 years and the likely surge in turnout among African-American and young people seems sufficient to offset it anyway.

Finally there are the states. Obama is now leading in every state that Al Gore and John Kerry both won, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and he is ahead in Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico, the three states that went once but not twice for Democrats in 2000 and 2004. He is also ahead in Florida, Colorado and Virginia. If that weren’t enough (and it is), he’s running basically even in Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, and even threatening in Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

The great mind of Seth McFarlane, creator of Family Guy on FOX, is known for coming up with quite some exaggerated, sometimes controversial opinions on world views and pop culture. In a recent episode, the popular TV show brings in a bit of Nazi-themed humor into the Republican campaign, by suggesting that modern day nazis support John McCain and Sarah Palin.

The man revealed to be “Joe the Plumber”, everyone’s favorite new drinking game character after last night’s presidential debate, has given more press interviews than Sarah Palin, the woman running for Vice President of the United States. In fact, it’s becoming apparent that the Secret Service are now working in conjunction with the Palin campaign to limit the movement of reporters at Palin ralleys, preventing them from interviewing crowd members or from identifying those who scream out hateful and threatening comments in regards to Obama.

This from Dana Millbank over at the Washington Post

I wasn’t at the Scranton event, but I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they’ve started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty — protecting the protectee — and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it’s unfounded because the reporters can’t get close enough to identify the person.

But back to John McCain’s new best friend, Joe the Plumber, who is beginning to look more and more like a Republican shill. As it turns out he doesn’t even have a plumber’s license and doesn’t necessarily have to worry anymore about his taxes being raised by Obama, because he doesn’t pay them anyways, owing back taxes in the state of Ohio to the tune of $1,182.92.

On last night’s Daily Show, John Stewart had a bit fun highlighting some hilarious similarities between McCain 3.0 (Republican Convention-era) and as the media puts it, McCain 4.0 (this week-era). Seems everyone in the press got a touch excited about some new version of John McCain which his campaign was unveiling via a new stump speech. Well, turns out John McCain 4.0 is just the Windows Vista of politics, as his “new” stump speech was nothing more than a rehash of old material that he pitched to the Republican Convention drones.

Hilarity ensues around 1:35, then again around 2:30

I think CNN commentator and former democratic political consultant Paul Begala described John McCain the most accurately after last nights debate: Grumpy McNasty.

There were always inklings and rumors about McCain’s temper, but tonight his hot-hotheadedness was up front and center. McCain was fidgety, crotchety and blinked several thousand times during last night’s 90 minute debate. I understand he wanted to try and fire up the base and re-ignite his campaign, but his constant interruptions, his erratic and downright schizophrenic meanderings over a mixture of topics and his scoffing at Women’s health issues were downright disturbing and quite honestly, seemed a bit out of touch. Obama on the other hand was calm, cool and collected, and above all, on-message the majority of his camera time. From a strategic point of view, brilliant. Let McCain come at you with everything he thinks he’s got, brush it off, stay collected, on-message and keep the focus of the debate on what it should be about, how you (Obama OR McCain) will help this country and it’s citizens.

I have to admit, impressive on Obama’s part, disappointing and downright confusing on McCain’s part, though I have to credit ole’ Grumpy McNasty for his restraint, many years of anger management instruction certainly paid off last night..

As always, we need some interesting after-game commentary, this time from CNN:

Keith Olbermann, on his MSNBC show Countdown, once again delivers a startling and refreshing commentary on John McCain and Sarah Palin’s ability to ignore the hate they are passively encouraging among their farther right supporters. As more and more McCain / Palin supporters come out of the woodwork to scream “Kill him” in regards to Obama, or “Obama bin Laden”, McCain and Sarah Palin become more and more schizophrenic and un-apologetic.

Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theatre. There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain.

But on this, you’re not only a fraud, Senator but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here’s your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.

As the McCain campaign continues attempting to discredit Obama in anyway possible, another of McCain’s aides sabotaged his campaign by again attempting to tie Obama to ACORN in a deeper way, failing to bring up the fact that McCain was also actively involved with several ACORN-sponsored rallys around the country.

In the video below, McCain addresses a rally sponsored by ACORN and their community-organization allies in 2006, with his speech starting around the 1:50-mark.