The dynamics of both races are very different. But I'm starting to think that the Democrats may actually get to 59 seats after all. I'm not saying it's anything like certain. Maybe not even probable. But Nate Silver is saying that the pattern of uncounted early and absentee votes in Alaska could well end up pushing Mark Begich past Ted Stevens.

The Franken-Coleman race I've been watching more closely. And I'm starting to think there's a very good chance Franken could end up prevailing. Partly I believe that because of the ground Franken has already made up in the pre-recount rechecking of ballot counts. And also because of the pattern of the undervotes, which suggests that Franken has more to gain from a recount than Coleman. But what's really got me convinced is how aggressively Coleman is going to the mats with the lawyers. On Saturday they tried and failed to get a court to prevent the opening of the 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis.

I think Coleman's crew realizes that a full recount is not going to end well for them.

Apropos of my post below, I'm getting word that Coleman may be in the process of fielding the lawyers for a replay of President Bush's 2000 recount smackdown. And this from the Associated Press gives a clue to why he is getting worried ...

An Associated Press analysis of the nearly 25,000-vote difference in Minnesota presidential and U.S. Senate race tallies shows that most ballots lacking a recorded Senate vote were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin defends herself, says her comments about the country of Africa were taken out of context. That and other political news in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.

Dahlia Lithwick brings us up to date on one of the many (but in this case, too little noted) bright spots of this election: Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) apparent defeat at the hands of Tom Perriello.

Late Update: Don't forget: Perriello was TPMCafe's Table for One guest last year.

As we and many others have chronicled, there's a surfeit of reasons to strip Sen. Lieberman of his committee chairmanship. But one, perhaps the most obvious and substantive, has gone little mentioned. Simply put, he was terrible at it. Lieberman's committee is the senate investigations and oversight committee, the senate's counterpart to Rep. Henry Waxman's committee in the House. And if you remember a lot about Waxman's investigations and hearings and nothing about Lieberman's, that's because Lieberman didn't hold any. Even in the face of endless scandals of the late Bush administration, Lieberman couldn't find anything worth poking into.

Al Franken is still behind in Minnesota. But as they've been finalizing and rechecking votes (all before any formal recount), Norm Coleman's lead has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. As of Friday evening the number separating the two was down to 221 votes -- well within the margin that recounts can sometimes overturn. (Indeed, Jon Chait notes that optical scan machines could produce non-trivial swings in the vote since votes that don't register on the optical scan machines often have evident voter intent on visual inspection.) But, now, as he sees his margin dwindle, Coleman is trying to play the 'vote fraud' card in a desperate attempt to retain his seat.

The Omaha World-Herald is calling the electoral vote of Nebraska's 2nd congressional district for Obama.

That would appear to make the total 365.

The President-elect's first presser:

I don't have any put together thoughts on Obama's presser. But a few quick observations. He seemed a little tight at first -- during the speech and at the beginning of Q&A. But then he warmed to it and seemed much better.

The Clinton-Bush transition was abbreviated because of the Recount. But I remember during the Bush-Clinton transition, Bill Clinton was conspicuously deferential to the one president at a time rule, invoking it repeatedly. At least that is my recollection. Obama was deferential. But I would not say extremely so. I thought a telling moment came when asked what would happen if he and President Bush came into conflict over key policy decisions -- especially on the economic crisis -- during the transition. One way to answer this would have been for Obama to say, there'd be no conflict. I'm not president. He is. etc.

He didn't say that. He said "I'm not going to anticipate problems." A very different answer.

Finally, "mutts like me." A line for the ages.

Colin McEnroe, from the Hartford Courant ...

When you consider the plight in which Harry Reid finds himself, consider this: Lieberman, who has broken violently with his party and engaged in campaigning loathsome fear-mongering against the man he once begged to come and save him, holds a prestigious committee chairmanship.

Hillary Clinton, at the moment, has no chairmanship at all because of the seniority system.

After each of the last three election cycles, we've expanded TPM and changed the kind of organization we are. Along the way we've gone from a staff of one in early 2005 to a staff of eleven today.

After the 2004 cycle, we began launching TPM's sister sites (starting with TPMCafe.com) and building our own original reporting capacity (starting with TPMmuckraker.com).

After the 2006 election, we took that small network of sites with commentary and focused original reporting and began expanding it into a full service news site for political and hard national news, with original reporting, news aggregation and breaking news. That involved our move into video (with TPMtv), hiring new reporters and redesigning the site's main page with the news section you see to the right.

Now that the 2008 election is over we wanted to share with you what we have planned for 2008 and beyond. TPM began during the 2000 recount. And its evolution has been always been bound up with my stance as a voice of opposition to the Bush administration. So the end of the Bush years and the beginning of a new Democratic administration presents us with something dramatically new.

In fact, I think it's important to step back to recognize just how new it is in the history of the country. On paper, there was last unified Democratic control in Washington sixteen years ago during President Clinton's first two years in office and before that during President Carter's presidency. Looks, however, are deceiving. For more than half a century before 1992, the Democratic party was actually two parties, even after the Civil Rights movement cleared the old-style segregationists and neo-dixiecrats from the party -- a national party and a southern one, a fact that created conservative governing majorities on numerous issues. What's more, both Clinton and Carter ran on platforms of bucking their party and its entrenched congressional majorities. For both these reasons and many others, what will begin in January is something this country hasn't really seen since the first half of the 20th century.

So January will usher in a new Democratic Ascendancy in Washington. And here at TPM we believe we are uniquely qualified to chronicle it. So to that end we are hiring two new reporter-bloggers to be based in Washington, DC, one assigned to the White House and one assigned to Capitol Hill. The Obama White House and the expanded Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill are unquestionably the political story of the next two years. And with your help we plan to be there on the ground and and here in New York, covering it in force, fully, critically and down to the minute. We want to keep you informed on what you'd know if you were reporting every day at the White House or on the Hill. Think of us, in that sense, as an insiders' publication for outsiders, which is how I've always thought of us.

Now, the big dailies have dozens of reporters on this story. And the VC-backed internet outlets have not many fewer than that. So we're not going to -- and it's never been our plan -- to compete on numbers. But we do have you -- an audience that is more engaged than that of any other publication covering what we cover. That's not only important in the sense of the general support you've given us over the years that has allowed us to grow to this point. You're also a critical part of our reporting model, our big leg up on everyone else. And that's a relationship and a resource we're going to continue to deepen and rely on as we make this big next step.

We'll be sharing a lot more details with you over the next few weeks and months. So much more to come. If you have any questions comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Joe Lieberman is putting out word that if the Democrats don't allow him to keep his chairmanship, he'll take up Mitch McConnell's invitation to join the Republican caucus. I think the answer has to be, go for it.

Says a Lieberman staffer: "Senator Lieberman's preference is to stay in the caucus, but he's going to keep all his options open. McConnell has reached out to him and at this stage his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable."

I think much of what Lieberman did over the last year was inexcusable. But magnanimity in victory is always a virtue and usually wise. So I don't think it's necessary to expel him from the caucus. And perhaps there are some perks of seniority he could be allowed to retain. But allowing him to keep his chairmanship is simply unacceptable. It's a position the Democrats hold because of the joint efforts of Democrats across the country pulling together to support Democratic policies and ideals and elect Democratic candidates. For Lieberman to enjoy the fruits of that labor after working so hard to stymie that effort would be unconscionable.

Lieberman says his position was one of conscience. And out of generosity more than reason, I'm willing to believe that. But as he so often says, you have to take responsibility for your actions.

And the simple fact is the Democrats don't need Joe Lieberman. He's not in a position to call anything 'unacceptable'. The Democrats didn't get to 60 votes or at least it now seems highly unlikely -- which was his only hope to have any continued relevance or position to bargain from. And the truth is that filibuster-busting votes are often made on an ad-hoc basis rather than on a party line. In any case, there'd be no more reason to trust he'd be there as a 60th vote as a Democrat than as a Republican.

Sen. Reid should take a cue from the one his fictional predecessor once heard in telling Lieberman how it's going to be: "My offer is this. Nothing."

Today's the deadline for our Winter 2008/2009 internship program. See the details here.

President-elect Obama will hold his first post-election press conference at 2:30 ET. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

As you may know the Obama transition team has now set up change.gov as the new transition website. And as TPM Reader SB points out there's already signs of the radicalism McCain and Palin warned the country about.

I've clipped out this section of their organization chart of the US government, which you can find linked on this page.

And as you can see, not only has the president been demoted to a position under the constitution. But the vice-president (as shown by the red arrow) has had his own fourth branch revoked and been reassigned to the executive branch ...

TPM Reader RR is skeptical of the latest Palin leaks ...

I find all this kind of amusing, but I'm skeptical of the veracity of some of these charges. Here's why:

1. The obvious point that in a losing campaign, many folks will try to throw blame around and hope none of it's stink gets on them;

2. Even with Mrs. Pale-in-Comparison being galactically uninformed and generally ditzy, it's hard to believe she thought the whole of Africa was one country or that South Africa was in fact a country and not a region; and

3. These guys in the McCain camp (whatever faction of it) have been unabashedly lying each and every day for months now, and feverishly projecting their own failures and shortcomings onto their adversary.

Why the hell should anyone believe them now?

It all amounts to good entertainment, in a macabre, schadenfreudey way, but really the woman has no real future in national politics, no matter what the Limbaugh/Hannity/Perkins wing of the GOP says. A Palin 2012 shot will be a repeat of Rudy 2008.

As a big of an ignoramus as Palin clearly is, and as big a liar, I'm more than a little skeptical myself.

As of 7:13 PM this evening the Virginia State Board of Elections shows Tom Perriello beating Rep. Virgil Goode by 648 votes.

Is Missouri just going to keep its electoral votes?