Most of us have had our fill of red state/blue state electoral vote maps during the last couple of weeks. But there is just one more that merits a gander, Princeton Election Consortium‘s size-distorted EV map of the U.S. It looks a little dada, but it nonetheless provides a more realistic view of political muscle in presidential races.
Charles Franklin’s “White Vote for Obama in the States, Part II” at Pollster.com concludes his statistical wrap-up on the topic (Part I is here). It will undoubtedly be studied avidly by students of racial attitudes.
Bob Moser, one of the more optimistic analysts of southern politics, writes on “A New, Blue Dixie” in The Nation. Says Moser:

Conventional wisdom advised Democratic presidential candidates to bend over backward to look like “regular” Southern guys–tote a gun, adopt an accent, pretend to be a NASCAR freak, run around with a Holy Bible tucked under each arm and, if all else failed, campaign atop a hay bale (as Michael Dukakis once did in North Carolina). Obama, precisely the kind of Democrat who was supposed to be an impossible sell in the South, eschewed such fakery. He looked South and saw not stereotypes but — wonder of wonders — Americans.

In a related report, Tim Murphy notes at Daily Yonder, via Facing South‘s Chris Kromm, that 32 of the 111 urban counties that shifted Democrat in the presidential vote were based in the South. In another post, Kromm also shows what a powerful force young white voters were in Obama’s NC win.
Poll analyst Nate Silver inks a two book deal with Penguin worth a reported $700K.
David G. Savage’s article, “Who Would Obama Pick for the Supreme Court?” in today’s L.A. Times centers on the probability of a woman appointee and discusses some candidates for Obama’s short list. The article also notes that Obama, more of a legal scholar than perhaps all other U.S, Presidents, has made remarks indicating he may favor moderates over judicial activists.
For a 3-point race that has national implications, the reporting on the GA Senate run-off is embarrassingly weak in today’s daily rags across the state. But The Media Consortium has a “Georgia Run-Off Newsladder” that serves as a good gateway to recent reporting on the race, thanks to the research of Spencer Kent and Robert Harding. See also the Daily Kos postings on ‘GA-Sen’, especially RUKind’s article, “Saxby ‘Sugar’ Shameless” for an informative update on Chambliss’s role in the Imperial Sugar Case. And MyDD‘s demoinesdem has a list of five things you can do to help elect Jim Martin, followed by insightful comments from readers.
Peter Hart and David Gergen have some perceptive comments on “How Obama Won” in their dialogue at Rolling Stone.
Just in case you thought that impressive Democratic victories in ’06 and ’08 would lead to more equitable coverage on the telly, ‘Political Animal’ Steve Benen has a Washington Monthly post showing that the Sunday political yak shows still have a strong conservative bias in their guest lists.