Welllll Mr. Fancy Baseball and Politics Man knows nothing about the Oscars, apparently! He thought that Taraji Henson would win Best Supporting Actress and Mickey Rourke would win Best Actor. Silver’s calculations excluded several important factors, including: 1) Penelope Cruz is very hot and 2) Sean Penn starred in a feel-good Issues Movie that concerns an issue that many people in Hollywood care about. Nate Silver must be publicly shamed, his statistics license revoked, and his $700,000 book advance donated to a math academy of his choice. [New York Magazine, OSCAR.com]

• CHUCK TODD, MODERN NOSTRADAMUS: Your editor often braves the terrifying hell-beasts at the top of MSNBC’s First Read because its authors really do have a way of putting a narrative frame around the news of the day. Yesterday we found an intriguing set of bullet points about Tom Daschle, concluding with this prediction: “The Rule of Three will now kick in: No other Obama appointee who has a tax problem will survive, period.” And today, wallah! Obama’s nominee for Chief Performance Officer has to withdraw her name from consideration. No news yet on the whys but it seems safe to assume this has something to do with “a tax lien placed on her house by the D.C government because of a failure to pay unemployment taxes on household help.” The authors of First Read are secretly Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett. [Washington Post]

Here is a bold Internet prediction: the newly off-the-market bronze Floridian frat-mammal Charlie Crist will make a run for the presidency next go-round. After all the work he put into his failed quest for the Republican VP nod this year — everything from endorsing the reanimated corpse of John McCain to asking a lady for her hand in marriage — nobody would have been shocked if he had just quit politics altogether once the odious Sarah Palin stole his spot. But his decision to forge ahead, putting his bachelor life behind him and doing something nice for the Everglades, means just one thing: he plans to position himself as the safe, non-religious-wingnut, environmentally reasonable Republican alternative for 2012. MORE »

Jesus, has this 2008 election happened already? Like last week sometime? Nope, it starts exactly seven days from today, and will end sometime in December after all the dumb Virginia Democrats who voted November 5th are cast into the sea and John McCain is crowned Permanent Dictator by the Supreme Court, which does not legislate from the bench. Or! Or Barack Obama will win the election fairly cleanly and handily, and Sarah Palin will immediately commence her 2012 REVENGE PLOT. MORE »

What is this weirdness? Joe Biden was talking to some supporters this weekend, at a fundraiser, about how Barack Obama will basically turn into a totalitarian dictator after he’s elected, just like Hercules did when he rinsed all the horseshit out of Washington by diverting a few rivers. Plus there will probably be another war or something, which Obama supporters will have to get behind. MORE »

The latest John McCain ad looks like a crap telecom commercial from 2001, as rendered by a designer who wanted to work for Apple but ended up toiling in direct mail, as delivered by a robot who speaks only in the passive voice. This description actually makes more sense than the ad, which should frighten America. [YouTube]

Despite the fact that he now leads the Democratic nomination race by every conceivable metric, Barack Obama will not be the candidate running against John McCain. Legions of Clinton die-hards will turn out in West Virginia tomorrow to stick it to MSNBC, Robert Reich, non-hard-working white people, and other members of the sexist cabal who want Hillary to throw in the towel before she has humiliated herself in all 50 states (plus Guam, Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Tatooine). MORE »

If Hillary Clinton loses the North Carolina primary by less than 15 points, it’s basically a win. And if she wins Indiana by a single pledged delegate, that is also a win. Both of these predictions may soon come true! According to new projections by Congressional Quarterly, Clinton will win Indiana in a squeaker — getting 24 district-level delegates to Obama’s 23 — even if she really wins it by up to 6% of the popular vote. Or something. Math is hard! MORE »

Because it is a day ending in “y,” somebody is ripping on poor old Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s beleaguered numbers swami who gets ridiculed every time he opens his mouth. But this time the critic isn’t one of his coworkers! Refreshing remarks, after the jump. MORE »

Hillary Clinton’s universally reviled strategist Mark Penn made one of those truth-gaffes today when he basically told reporters that Barack Obama can’t win the general election. Then he tried to finesse it, but he failed, and Harold Ickes blamed him for everything and Patti Solis Doyle was fired, emphatically again, for good measure. MORE »

Is this Democratic primary season about math, or hope? Is it about victims, victimizers, or zombies? Never before have the electoral waters been so muddied, but one thing is clear: Hillary Clinton’s campaign would be a lot better off if a selection of freak events were to occur in the very near future. Her options, after the jump. MORE »