Barr Smashing the Third Party Opposition….***(Not Anymore….)
…says CNN right now, with 11 percent of precincts reported. The Libertarian Party's Barr is at 108,000 or so, more than four time the Ron Paul-anointed Chuck Baldwin, and a good 30K ahead of Nader.
If a straight extrapolation holds, Barr will far exceed the 550,000 I called for him in a comment thread earlier in the day, and actually reach the magic million. Developing….
UPDATE: Won't be updating this all night–check the link for the freshest–but with 14 percent of precincts reporting, Barr's at 120K, not quite 30K ahead of Nader with 91,000, and still about 4 times ahead of Baldwin.
UPDATE II: The straight extrapolation is already faltering–with 17 percent reporting, a straight extrapolation from now would have Barr totalling 805,000 or so. Despite my own earlier call of 550K for Barr, with this information I've already made a bet with someone that he'll now beat 600K.
UPDATE III: I promised I wouldn't update all night, and I won't! But one more at least. Yes, straight extrapolations are dangerous things. With 23 percent reporting, Barr's at 163,737–still ahead of Nader, but by less than 20K now. And the extrapolations continue to mislead–from this point, if all remains equal, Barr will total in at around 712,000.
UPDATE IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE. I really am walking away from the computer for a while now. The heading should now more appropriately, at 28 percent of precincts reported, "Barr beating the Third Party Opposition." He's still ahead of Nader, but only by 8 thousand or so, and that may well not hold–in fact, it seems likely not to.
A straight extrapolation from right now would have Barr at 655K total. But remember how misleading that has been so far: he's right now only at about 67 percent of where he would be if the extrapolation from 11 percent reported held. So, I'm feeling better and better about the prediction I made before I had a bit of data on actual votes: 550,000 for Barr. And feeling a little nervous about that breaking 600K bet.
UPDATE V: With 31 percent reported, Nader is within a thousand or so of Barr, who is at 196,212. This headline will doubtless no longer apply in any variant within an hour or so of 7:15 pacific time, when I now write.
UPDATE VI: Went to listen to a bunch of well-to-do people at a hoity Pasadena hotel mostly cheer and clap the Obama acceptance speech (then heard one earnestly explain to table mates how people lose incentive to work when jobs or money are guaranteed); when I returned to my computer, well, Nader was/is over 130,000 ahead of Barr.
And it looks certain that I both lost my bet (made in the flush of a Barr whose vote totals were highly overweighted in that first 11 percent of precincts that reported) and overwhelmingly likely that I overestimated Barr's pull in my pre-vote-count guess: With 85 percent reported as I write, Barr is at 442,061 votes.
Well, he did do better than Badnarik, just like all his fans promised he would.