11/17 Roundup: Fireside IM’s

• President-elect Obama continues a tradition started by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, albeit in with a 21st century twist, in his new weekly You Tube chats. Everyone is encouraged to take their laptops and curl up by their fake fireplace to rekindle the ghosts of socialists past:

• Speaking of the mandate for socialism, Senator Max Baucus of Montana has proposed a new universal health care plan that includes mandates and other important cost controls. I argued this past week that mandates will be necessary for any successful plan, so this is music to my ears. Baucus is chairman of the all-powerful Senate finance committee, so his opinion matters a great deal. Read more about Senator Baucus’s forward-thinking plan here.

• Although only NBC has called the state of Missouri, the final electoral vote tally looks all but official–Obama 365–McCain 173. To everyone’s surprise, Senator Obama won 1 electoral vote from the state of Nebraska. Nebraska and Maine both divvy up their electoral votes by congressional district (with the winner of the state as a whole getting the other two electoral votes). Although this is novel in theory, this is the first time that either state has ever in practice not given all their electoral votes to one candidate. Although McCain won the state as whole  (2 electoral votes) and the other two congressional districts (1 electoral vote each) very comfortably, Obama won the popular vote in the 2nd congressional district.