Month: December 2006

Back in mid-October, most of you will recall that James and I launched a community predictions contest. We selected twelve races from all across the country – half of them top-tier, the other half more obscure – and asked SSPers to predict the outcomes. Well, we’ve finally compiled the results!

As we said at the outset, winners are determined by who made the closest predictions in the aggregate, across all dozen races. So, for example, if you predicted Corker by five in TN-Sen, you got two “points” added to your total score (he won by three). However, if you had picked Ford by five, you would have gotten eight points added to your score. (In other words, the race was Dem -5, but you said Dem +3, which is a difference of 8.)

If the math bores or confuses you, don’t worry. Just trust me and James. (After all, we majored in history and poli sci.) We tallied up the score in each race for each entrant – the folks with the lowest scores did the best. Without further ado, the winners (scores in parens):

Winner: Democraticavenger (50)
First Runner-Up: Tyler (53)
Second Runner-Up: Dcal (57)
Third Runner-Up: Craig (58)

Congratulations to you all! At some point, my sorry ass will send you some SSP schwag, but I can promise you that it will not come in time for the winter holidays. (Besides, I’ve already missed Diwali by over a month.) Please e-mail me if you are a winner and would like to (eventually) claim your prize.

If you’d like to see how your predictions stacked up against the rest of the community’s (we had 52 total entries), you can check out this PDF. (Legend: R = actual result; D = difference between guess and result; P = “points,” ie, the absolute value of the difference.)

Thanks to everyone for participating! We had a lot of fun, and we hope you did, too.

Chris Cillizza and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum have a piece in the Washington Post today on the 2007 race for Governor of Kentucky. The announcement this week by Congressman Ben Chandler that he will not seek to become the Democratic nominee against troubled GOP incumbent Ernie Fletcher opens the field to a number of possible Democratic candidates.

http://bluesunbelt.c…

We did the beta launch on December 1 of a new progressive netroots site BlueSunbelt.Com for the South and Sunbelt states. We are aiming for a formal launch on January 1. We have the site up and running and are in the process of working out any kinks before the formal launch. We need some testers who would like to post diaries and comments during the beta period.

http://bluesunbelt.c… 

BlueSunbelt.Com will be a progressive netroots community for some of the fastest growing population areas of the United States including the Old South, Border, and Sunbelt states. We will especially be seeking users in those states who can write on local and state races in 2007 and we need users who do national coverage pieces on political issues and the 2008 House, Senate, and Presidential races. Quality user diaries will be bumped to the front page and we will be adding regular front page posters as well as the site becomes established.

Let’s hear it.

P.S. Check out this good article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about the efforts the blogosphere had made on behalf of Christine Jennings.