Final election thread of the night

99.07% precincts reporting.

As far as I can tell, everything has reported except for 40 precincts in Philly, and seven precincts in Obama-friendly Delaware County. If my math is right (and it probably isn't), that could be worth another 7,000 or so net votes for Obama, which might or might not be enough to gain the 0.2 points to round this thing to 8 percentage points. I could try to figure it out, but it's too late to test my meager math skills.

The delegate count is still at Clinton +10.

That's a difference of 9.38 percent which, if you're going to round, would round down to 9 percent, not 10 percent. That is, unless we decide we're averse to odd number splits.

And there may be more precincts outstanding than just the Delaware County and Philly ones, plus provisional ballots still left.

Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute and Jonathan Lewis of the Clean Air Task Force write in Tuesday’s Washington Post:

^{Ethanol's Failed Promise}

The willingness to try, fail and try again is the essence of scientific progress. The same sometimes holds true for public policy. It is in this spirit that today, Earth Day, we call upon Congress to revisit recently enacted federal mandates requiring the diversion of foodstuffs for production of biofuels. These "food-to-fuel" mandates were meant to move America toward energy independence and mitigate global climate change. But the evidence irrefutably demonstrates that this policy is not delivering on either goal. In fact, it is causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis.

Food-to-fuel mandates were created for the right reasons. The hope of using American-grown crops to fuel our cars seemed like a win-win-win scenario: Our farmers would enjoy the benefit of crop-price stability. Our national security would be enhanced by having a new domestic energy source. Our environment would be protected by a cleaner fuel. But the likelihood of these outcomes was never seriously tested, and new evidence has shown that the justifications for these mandates were inaccurate.

It is now abundantly clear that food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy -- most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts, and some production facilities are reportedly dumping these in local water sources.

Third, food-to-fuel mandates are helping drive up the price of agricultural staples, leading to significant changes in land use with major environmental harm.

On the ground in the Lehigh Valley 2

Many Lehigh Valley voters I talked to today spoke in short hand about their perspectives on the candidates. They were repeating the distilled collective wisdom of family, friends and co-workers. Sometimes it was difficult to get them to apply their own personal insights and experiences to that received wisdom.

Some others, however, and the most interesting voters, spoke in very personal terms. One of the most remarkable of these voters was Tara Schaffer, a young working mother in rural Heidelberg Heights. Working, and then some. She confessed that she didn't follow politics as closely as she'd like to because she works 60 hour weeks in 12 hour shifts. And she does so gladly because for nearly a year she was unemployed, facing bankruptcy and the loss of her house because her adjustable rate mortgage payments went through the roof. Her family desperately needed healthcare coverage, so this exhausting job is a lifeline.

She voted today for the first time in her life. She registered a few years ago at the DMV, but never received her voter registration information and so she assumed that she wasn't registered. Tara says she decided to vote only because an Obama canvasser came to her door and convinced her that she could and should vote.

She said that was the only canvasser she had ever seen, and it doesn't suprise me. In 2004 I canvassed this entire town and had to do it on my own because the local Kerry headquarters (with canvassers available by the hundreds) didn't want to invest any effort in going after rural voters. I was convinced that was a mistake, and Tara's story shows exactly why. Many of these voters are in need of basic information or simple advice about how to vote, having been neglected by the parties for decades, and many can be persuaded to vote Democratic.

Tara's young son, too, urged her to vote for Obama. He's a news junkie, and at school the kids are excited about Obama's candidacy.

Tara admits that in the past she didn't feel any urgency to vote, but this year is different. This year, she says, is critical because of the Iraq fiasco. The Iraq war "turned me into a Democrat," she told me. And she has really had quite enough of Bush family members in the White House. That made a vote for McCain this year unthinkable for her. She regards McCain as a continuation of Bush's policies.

In the end she opted for Obama because she likes his quiet determination and calmness. She's looking for change in the future, and she thinks a candidate who keeps lobbyists at arms length might achieve something.

Tara had nothing against Hillary Clinton, and will vote for her in a heartbeat if she's the Democratic nominee. But she resented the negativity and triviality of some of her ads. Tara pointed out that she's been struggling for years just to keep her family fed, clothed, and housed. And here you have a campaign lavishing millions of dollars on TV ads that aren't about anything that matters to the country. If they've got a million dollars to waste, she said, they should just give the money to her. "I could really use it."

Single digits

98.91% precincts reporting.

That's an 8.6 percent margin, which we can round up to 9 percent. If it drops a few points lower, then it can be rounded down to 8 percent which was the consensus results.

Not that it really changes much, but the semantics are clearly important. It's less impressive to brag about her 8-point victory than "double-digit" lead. And, given her Ohio results, it proves that Clinton is losing ground to Obama among her core constituencies while he holds on to his own.

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