Upside and Downside

McCain's upside is receding. Without truly surprising changes to the race, the best he'll be able to do is exactly duplicate the Bush-Gore map. With the post-2000 reapportionment, that would give McCain a 278-260 win.

The best Obama can do without big surprises would be to take the Gore states plus NV, CO, MO, IN (yes, really), OH, NH, VA, NC (uh huh), and FL. That would give Obama a 375-163 win.

Unfortunately, I think the distribution within that range is rather flat, maybe even weighted toward the poles. So even though McCain's victory threshold is over to one end of the range, it is not far-fetched for him to win.

ETA: OK, without getting too extreme (except in how the country is governed) McCain could win PA and MI, too. That's a stretched max for him of a 314-224. But that I do think is unlikely, in a receding tail of the distribution.

Yankees Post Mortem

They finished with the fourth best record in the AL, tied with the Mets for the 7th best in MLB. Just missed 90 wins.

That's not nearly as good as they're supposed to be, but they have a good team. They just need either to get younger to avoid injuries or deeper in order to withstand them. Unless there's a big difference between generations of Steinbrenners, deeper is probably the answer.