Scratching the itch

Someone asked me where I go to get my daily (okay, hourly... if lab is slow, five-minutely) political fix. I've added links to political junkie sites on the sidebar. I'm particularly fond of these four because they are very good about compiling data and letting it speak for itself, and the fifth is a good time-killer. A brief word on them:

Political Wire is run by a guy named Taegan Goddard. I know nothing about him, but he basically compiles headlines from various news agencies and also includes all new polls. He doesn't update much on weekends, which is a bit of a bummer.

538.com is run by Nate Silver, who by day is a baseball stathead for Baseball Prospectus. He's quite the number cruncher. His site compiles all polls and tries to predict the election. A ton of data and a very thoughtful guy.

Electoral Vote is run by The Votemaster, a pseudonym for Andrew S. Tanenbaum, an American comp sci professor who has been in the Netherlands for quite some time. Among other accomplishments, he's considered to be the grandfather of the Linux operating system. His electoral college prediction isn't nearly as complicated as 538.com, but his commentary each day is particularly enjoyable.

Pollster.com is run by several guys, including Charles Franklin and Mark Blumenthal, professional pollsters. I haven't found their analysis to be particularly worth reading, but the site is certainly complete.

Finally, 270towin has a nice interactive map that you can click on to figure out how your candidate can reach 270 electoral votes.