No, no literary news. The fate of the nation is just too damn important. Virginia and Montana are tight, but Tester and Webb are both ahead and it’s looking possible that the Demos will get the Senate too.

Bush has called a press conference for 1:00 PM EST. What is this guy going to say? What is he going to do to spin this when he just got drop-kicked by the votes of the people?

Okay, it boils down to this. If the Demos take Montana, Missouri, and Virginia, then we have the Senate. Here are the latest numbers:

Montana
Tester (D): 88,302
Burns (R): 75,256

40% precincts

Missouri
Claire McCaskill (D): 812,038
Jim Talent (R): 799,471

80.3% precincts

Virginia
Webb (D): 1,150,473
Allen (R): 1,148,656

99.47% precincts

With 19.69% of the precincts reporting in, Webb (D) is leading Allen (R — incumbent) by a few hundred votes. Close, but this could change.

UPDATE: Allen has lurched ahead, with 30% of the precincts reporting. He’s up by about a few thousand votes.

UPDATE 2: Man, this is close. With 35.8% of the precincts, Webb leads by a mere thirty-eight votes. Pass the bourbon.

3rd District: Yarmuth (D) ahead of Northup (R – incumbent) 50.1% to 48.8%, with 65.7% precincts reporting.

This is looking good, but I won’t be confident until we’re closer to 90% precincts reporting. Even so, this is a hell of a lot less closer than I expected! Thank you for running, Ms. Libertarian! Feels just like Nader in 2000 again!

• 5th District: Virginia Brown-Waite (R – incumbent) 62.4% to John Russell (D).
• 9th District: Gus Bilirakis (R — incumbent) 53.2% to Phyllis Busansky (D) 46.8%.
• Senate: Katherine Harris (R): 42.0% to Bill Nelson (D — incumbent): 56.3%

No change in Congress for now, but it’s still early.

Neck to neck. Northup leading by a few hundred votes with 53.4% precincts reporting.

• 2nd District: Mike Weaver (D) ahead, 59.5% to 40.5% (2.1% precincts). Weaver is running against Republican incumbent Ron Lewis.
• 3rd District: John Yarmuth (D) ahead, 51.1% to 47.6% (14.9% precincts). Yarmuth is running against Republican incumbent Anne Northup.
• 4th District: Geoff Davis (R) ahead, 50.9% to 42.2% (0.3% precincts). He’s the incumbent and Ken Lucas (D) is running against him.

It’s far too early to tell, but so far, that’s two representative seats for the Democrats.

• Gore Vidal calls today the most important election in his lifetime.
• MoveOn has issued a $250,000 reward for any evidence relating to the recent voting fraud.
• Maud Newton has also been updating.
• Exit polls if you want them. But they mean nothing. Nothing!
• Adam Nagourney: “These expectations may well be overheated. Polls over the weekend suggested that the contest was tightening, and some prognosticators on Monday were scaling back their predictions, if ever so slightly.”
• This picture of Glenn Reynolds participating by webcam seems oddly appropriate.
• Hillary Clinton has spent the most out of any midterm campaigner.

• Associated Press: Reports of voter intimidation in three states. The aforementioned Maryland ballots, FBI complaints in Virginia of phone calls urging people to stay home, and Hispanic voters are being bulled in Arizona.
• More on Maryland: Daily Kos has a sample ballot and reports indicating that Steele’s campaign bused in the homeless to distribute the flyers.
• Virginia: An AP report on the FBI investigation.
• Arizona: Justin Rood’s report.
• So let’s dig into the first two states. As I write this, no counting has begun.
• Indiana: The Fort Wayne News Sentinel is reporting that this is a very large turnout. (And, as a side note, you apparently can’t purchase alcohol until after the polls close in Indiana. Wow, I had no idea.)
• As for Kentucky, the polls have just closed and the Courier-Journal‘s election blog is a good place to start.

From the Maryland State Board of Elections frequently asked Election Day Questions:

Q: Can a bar or packaged goods store serve alcoholic beverages on Election Day?
A: Yes. (Article 2B, Alcoholic Beverages)

Does one have to ask?

Now they’re resorting to disseminating false ballots to voters.

Based on phone calls and emails I’ve received today, nearly every political junkie I know, even the half-hearted ones, are starting to go insane, becoming giddily hubristic in their pronouncements. Case in point: The eXile’s Mark Ames is so convinced that the Republicans will take both houses that he’s willing to register with the Republican Party by the end of the year. But that ain’t all:

Whoever challenges me has to agree to the following: If the Republicans hold on to both houses of Congress, then my challenger(s) must sign a statement confessing that America’s experiment with democracy has failed. That America’s democracy can no longer be excused as “imperfect,” but rather, as your public confession will stress, democracy is the root of America’s problem. Your solution? You pledge to support the peaceful transfer of power to a junta, which will work to “restore order.”

(Thanks, Richard!)

Threats in Virginia.

I was third in line, the first to return the mammoth five-sheet ballot in the machine, which I had spent hours researching last night and this morning.

I have to commend the volunteers at the Page Street Library. Last year, I experienced problems. But it seems that there has been serious reform. The woman who hectored me about voting a particular way last year had disappeared. In fact, the Department of Elections has become much stricter about the dissemination of political information near polling places. Outside the library, one gentleman was asked to remove his button because he was well within 100 feet of the polling place. In light of the endless machine-oriented calls (Ah-nuld apparently called me last night at 10:02 PM) and the despicable robocalls reported, it’s good to know that some areas of the nations still care about ethical elections.

Now comes the midterm elections, which I am now prepared to accept whichever way they turn out. It’s really anybody’s game at this point. The polls are close, yet the stakes are high.

In discussing the matter with friends, there have been comparisons to the so-called 1994 “Republican revolution,” should the Democrats manage to take back both houses. I think it’s naive to assume that any big sweep is going to mean dancing in the streets. If we do this, this is the first battle in a long war to undo the damage that these bozos have inflicted upon the country.

Can the Democrats be counted upon to show some spine? Let’s not kid ourselves. But I think any liberal can agree that a tug of war is better than getting sodomized.