Allen won't seek a recount. The Democrats take the Senate. Link available as soon as somebody puts it online.

UPDATE: Here's the AP.

“In Utah, they’re going to love it because they use ketchup and American cheese on their pizzas,” she said.

Over time, my bread (in addition to growing much less frequent) has tended toward the extremes in terms of rising time-- either I make it and let it rise very slowly over the course of days, or else I throw together a massive quantity of yeast, flour, and water, let it rise for however many minutes I can spare before dinner, then smush it flat and bake it at a blazing heat (my girlfriend has turned the latter substance "faux-caccia.").

Today, Mark Bittman ratifies the former approach, although taking it to ane xtreme that I have never tried before, where there is no kneading at all. Here is his column. Here is the recipe.

In the course of a good post about third-party "spoilers" and the need for a single-transferable-ballot, Sandy Levinson contemplates the Senate race in Montana:

In Montana, the Libertarian candidate got 2.1% of the vote, far more than the margin between Treaster [sic] and Burns. I assume that most of those votes would have gone to Burns had it been a forced choice.

Students of land use know well the legal riddles related to "spot zoning" (the ability of a local official or board to re-zone, usually favorably, a single plot of property). Because of the nature of our basically adversary system, challenges to a spot-zoning tend to go into court only when a neighbor or other person is aggrieved by this, and it is usually hard for them to build a compelling case about what exactly is unjust or harmful about any particular instance of favorable spot-zoning-- it can seem to a reviewing judge a lot like an executive pardon or other act of grace.

But as Jacob Levy points out in the context of this N.Y. Times article, the real harms created by spot-zoning are systemic-- the ability to hand out favors individually creates an incentive for the government collectively to pass a zoning regime where a lot of favors are needed to get by. In theory, this fact ought to be considered by state or federal courts that review the constitutionality of zoning regimes, but in practice, it's rare for a court to pay that close attention to the whole picture of local land use law.

There will of course be three memes that settle out of this election.

1) Values votes were decisive (Stem cells helped McCaskill and gay marriage hurt Ford!);
2) The Democrats are now a national party; the Republicans are now a regional party;
3) Howard Dean beat Rahm Emanuel in terms of monetary allocation.

One is obviously false. This was, to a certain extent, a referendum on Bush and Iraq fatigue. Stem cells and straight marriage are popular and hard to defeat at the polls because no one wants to be against Grandpa or marriage (although the failure of Colorado's civil union bill surprises me).

The second is also false. The '94 realignment is now complete. In the entire confederacy, Democrats picked up four seats: Tom DeLay's where the write-in Republican candidate was named Sekula-Gibbs, Mark Foley's, Clay Shaw's (notably Jewish and liberal West Palm Beach), and a seat in North Carolina where Heath Shuler (a pro-life, anti-gay, evangelical, former NFL quarterback) ran. The only Senate pick-up was by a former Republican Secretary of the Navy under Reagan who wrote a book in praise of Scots-Irish fighting. Democrats look to have 29 pickups: 7 in the Northeast, 5 in the Mid-Atlantic, the aforementioned 4 in the South, 8 in the Midwest, and 5 in the West. That's more geographic diversity, but the bulk of the party still represents the coasts. Much of the reconsolidation in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic was moving house delegations closer to parity (there's still imbalance compared to the Presidential vote in Michigan, gerrymandered to protect safe black Democratic seats, and Ohio, gerrymandered by the Republican machine). Suffice it to say, there will be much CNN discussion, but I think it's wrong, which brings us to three.

The third point will be very interesting as each faction (DLC, DNC) tries to claim credit. I view the losses in Ohio as damning to Dean. Money was diverted from Midwest districts to unwinnable contests throughout the country, and as frustratingly close as WY and ID were, a hell of a lot of money was spent to push those races to close tightly. The big scalps for Dean? Ryun in KS and Perlmutter winning in the CO-7. The Arizona races were closely contested in '04 in a state thats been moving leftwards as more Californians emigrate to it, and Pombo's loss in CA was corruption/Abramoff driven. The races Dems needed to close on (for them, not normatively) were in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. It was a very successful night for Democrats, and the national party rhetoric is nice, but in '08, do they want to spend tens of millions of dollars to try and salvage a +17 electoral vote split of Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Arizona, Arkansas and Tennessee, ala Dean, or do they want to try and get Ohio and Iowa on board (+27)?

If we need a recount in Virginia, it will not be terribly soon, says the N.Y. Times:

According to a statement issued this month by the state’s Board of Elections, no request for a recount may be filed until the vote is certified, which is scheduled to happen this year on Nov. 27th.

After certification, a losing candidate has 10 days to file a recount request in the state courts. The petition will be considered by a panel made up of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court in Richmond and two judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. Those judges then set out guidelines for conducting the recount.

With only Meagher county to count, Tester is ahead by 1725 votes. According to the 2000 census, Meagher's total population is 1932.

Meagher went 625-267 for Burns in 2000. Harry Reid is right. The Democrats take the senate, 49-49-2 (with the eventual VA recount going their way).

The house looks like an exact flip: DEMS+29, (D 232, R 203), with the hardest losses for Dems probably coming in WY and ID against insane candidates (Cubin, Sali), or in Ohio where House Republicans avoided down ticket losses (Chabot in the 1st, Schmidt in the 2nd, and Pryce in the 15th). Just think - Indiana has a more Dem house delegation than Ohio. Weird. Republicans got slaughtered in NH and PA, with the only bright spots in the Northeast being Chris Shays (CT-4) and deep upstate New York (Walsh 25, Reynolds (!) 26, Kuhl 29). Had those seats flipped, they would have been very hard for Republicans to take back. As it is, barring another realignment election, they are probably safe until retirement. The house is completely blue until CT from the Maine coast, which is something. Congratulations moderate Republicans, there are now eight of you in a 200 member delegation (Shays, Walsh, Kuhl, King, Gerlach, Pryce, Wilson, Bilbray). Good luck when the rest of your housemates retrench rightwards.

It's pretty clear that we now have divided government-- the Democrats control the House of Representatives. The Senate still seems to be up in the air-- Montana and Virginia are too close to call, and the Democrats control the Senate if they win both. Here are the numbers from the New York Times. Here they are from CNN. The Democrats have small leads in both states.

Here is Rick Hasen, predicting a 75% chance that we will know who controls the Senate by the end of the day ("beyond the margin of litigation"). Here are Jacob Levy's brief thoughts on the Democratic takeover of New England.

There were initiatives and constitutional amendments too. Arizona passed both a very strong property rights amendment (here is the PLF blog-roundup), and became the first state to reject a gay marriage amendment (here is Pandagon). Kudos to the land of Goldwater.

Dem Pickups: Webb, McCaskill, Brown, Whitehouse, Casey, Tester (?)
Dem Holds: Menendez, Cardin, Lieberman

There'll be a recount in VA, probably not in MO. MT is still too early to call, but I'm going to hit the hay. Webb will certainly hold on in VA regardless of the recount: the only Senate race still really out, despite CNN is MT.

The house has DEMS +27 right now, with 28 out (probably about 7-10 more pickups in those 31). Steele polled 45; guess Prince George didn't put him as close or over the top.

Quaker wins barring some bad late West Coast house swings, since our Senate picks were equal save the Steele pick.

Senate: 49-49-2 with Dem control
House: Somewhere between 230-205 and 240-195, which would be fairly huge.

Trends: don't believe the Iraq claims -- Clinton won almost as much as Schumer in '04 and Lieberman won; Webb didn't do as well in rural Virginia as Kaine, but did better in Columbia. Gay marriage is unpopular as are civil unions even in the libertarian west (look at Colorado), and somewhat sadly, marijuana still is only a 40ish% bag.