That Dude With the Weird Name is the Next President

I'll be the first to admit that I'm extremely cynical about politics, but even I can't help feeling emotional seeing all the African-Americans (and others, too) cheering and in tears as the networks declare Obama the winner of the presidential election. And the interviews with black leaders about how far they have come since the days of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech (which really is an incredible, tingling speech) are pretty amazing. I don't know if anything much will change in a practical sense over the next 4 years, but you have to admit that the symbolism of electing a young black man as president is pretty powerful, and pretty cool.

Now the interesting question for me is how close Nate Silver (of Baseball Prospectus, and he's the guy who created PECOTA) is with his projections! If he's close, will the stat nerds will be vindicated, and freed from the opression of our mother's basements? Stay tuned!

UPDATE, 11:20pm - Pretty nice concession speech by McCain, I thought.

UPDATE, 11:38pm - Just to be clear, I don't really see eye-to-eye with Obama on a lot of issues & philosophies. But I feel relatively positive about him (since I will probably never see eye-to-eye with any "electable" candidate) because he seems like an intellectually curious person who is going to use logic and evidence when designing policy. It's a relatively low bar, yes, but given what you can end up with in these things, not altogether bad.