MSNBC just had the governor of Pennsylvania on and he said that because the state Republican party chose to run some inflammatory commercials in the final days about Jeremiah Wright, African American turnout has been off the charts today across the state, east and west. Obama is already looking to win the Keystone State, turning out to be this year’s Ohio ’04 and Florida ’00, by double digits.

If you’ve been following Nate Silver’s analysis on fivethirtyeight.com, you know that McCain’s chances of getting to 270 electoral votes drops dramatically if he loses Pennsylvania. He’d essentially have to win every state Bush took versus Kerry and Gore, including Colorado. And as a Coloradan, I can pretty much guarantee he’s not getting Colorado. So if McCain loses Pennsylvania, he’s as good as sunk before the ballots west of the Mississippi are even counted.

Even though I only need 774 words to stay on pace, I’m not sure I’m going to get it. The election coverage is going to be pretty much all-encompassing, unless things wrap up early.

For me, this election is essentially over. I dropped by one the early polling places (two, actually) yesterday and cast my vote for Barack Hussein Obama (and Joe Biden, Mark Udall for Colorado’s senate seat and Ed Perlmutter for my congressional district). I voted at the second polling station because the line at the first one was a good fifty meters long at least, most of that people two or three abreast. And this is early voting, a full week before election day.

Turnout is amazing this year. Looks very good for democracy. Normally I’d slide into a rant about how the Dems are all about voter turnout and the Republicans, in the last several elections, have done everything they can to suppress voter turnout, prevent the people from making their will known. But I’m in such a good mood, I’ll just give that a pass.