Clip ‘n’ Save for Tuesday night — Of course, we won’t know winners right away after polls have closed, but this in the order in which polls will close, by state, and the Electoral College votes for each state. “swing” states are bolded, states that ought to be safe for Obama are blue:

At 7 pm EST, polls will close in these states:

• Georgia 16
• Indiana 11
• Kentucky 8
• South Carolina 9
• Vermont 3
• Virginia 13

If Virginia is called for President Obama, Romney’s shot at 270 electoral college votes will already be remote.

7:30 pm EST:

• North Carolina 15
• Ohio 18
• West Virginia 5

Some are still calling North Carolina a “battleground” state, but the chances the President will win there are remote, and I’m assuming Romney will win North Carolina. The President is favored to win Ohio, but if he loses, and Mittens has Virginia at this point, we may be in for a grim night.

8 pm EST:

• Alabama 9
• Connecticut 7
• Delaware 3
• Florida 29
• Illinois 20
• Maine 4
• Maryland 10
• Massachusetts 11
• Michigan 16
• Mississippi 6
• Missouri 10
• New Hampshire 4
• New Jersey 14
• Oklahoma 7
• Pennsylvania 20
• Rhode Island 4
• Tennessee 11
• Washington, DC 3

Mittens is still trying to win Pennsylvania, but Nate Silver says there’s a 97.3 percent chance of an Obama win. A Romney win there would be a huge upset.

New Hampshire is on the edge of being safe for Obama, but not quite.

I keep wanting to call Florida the “silver tuna.” Mitt pretty much has to win Florida if he’s going to get to 270.

So by 8 pm, we’ll be chewing our nails and waiting for the networks to call Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. If Romney wins all three of those, he has a real shot at winning the election. If he loses any of them, he probably won’t. If he loses Florida, especially, it’s probably out of reach for him. He’d have to pull off a major upset in one or two “big states,” like Pennsylvania, to make up for it.

If by chance Obama wins all three of those, we can go to bed on time.

8:30 pm EST

• Arkansas 6

9:00 pm EST

• Arizona 11
• Colorado 9
• Kansas 6
• Louisiana 8
• Minnesota 10
• Nebraska 5
• New Mexico 5
• New York 29
• South Dakota 3
• Texas 38
• Wisconsin 10
• Wyoming 3

Some pundits are still talking about Wisconsin and Michigan as if they were still up for grabs, but Nate Silver has chances of an Obama win above 90 percent for both states.

By 9:30 or so we may know whether Colorado will matter, either way. If Mitt has Florida and most of the other battleground states, Colorado may help him. If not, it won’t matter. Of course, we may not know anything yet.

10 pm EST:

• Iowa 6
• Montana 3
• Nevada 6
• Utah 6

Iowa and Nevada are both “likely” states for Obama.

11 pm EST:

• California 55
• Hawaii 4
• Idaho 4
• North Dakota 3
• Oregon 7
• Washington 12

If everything is going as expected, the West Coast will nail it down before midnight, I hope.

1 am EST:

• Alaska 3

Now, what are the chances a “problem” state like Ohio or Florida will hold everything up by demanding a recount? The good news is that President Obama ought to be able to get to 270 votes without Florida and Ohio, and even without Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, which are the most likely states to hang everything up, IMO. To do that he would need all of the “blue” states above plus Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire, but he’s probably going to get them. If President Obama clearly wins either Ohio or Virginia, then barring some upset of a major blue state, Florida won’t matter.

My point here is that some critical states with earlier poll closing times are probably going to tell us where the wind is blowing, so to speak.

7:31 Ohio and North Carolina too close to call.

Right-wing news media claim that Mayor Bloomberg tried to keep the National Guard out of Brooklyn because they carry guns. I find that odd, since there were armed National Guard in lots of places in New York City for several years after 9/11, and this was while Bloomberg was mayor, and he didn’t have a problem with armed National Guard in Grand Central Station or Penn Station or Rockefeller Center or Wall Street or anywhere else I used to see them.

And, anyway, there are National Guard in Brooklyn, according to a Brooklyn newspaper.

Reading between the lines a bit, what seems to have happened is that Borough President Marty Markowitz asked for National Guard to stop looting in places like Coney Island and Seagate. And Bloomberg said no, that’s what the NYPD is for.

Commenters to The Blaze appear to assume that all of New York is being terrorized by roaming gangs of criminals and there is no law enforcement helping them. Actually, the NYPD is not known for being shy about using firearms against suspects, and it’s actually very good at crowd and riot control, although I haven’t heard of actual riots going on — well, a lack of riots never stopped them from doing riot control before, come to think of it — or looting of a widespread nature. Some isolated incidents do not warrant calling the troops.

The NYPD is the biggest police force in the country. If it were an army, it would be the 7th largest in the world. Mayor Bloomberg joked just last year that “I have my own army.”

Keeping the NYPD doing law enforcement and letting National Guard do disaster relief sounds like a sensible use of resources to me.

I’m not sure if the Guardsare under Governor Cuomo’s authority or federal authority, since I believe Guard units from outside New York have come here to help. In any event, I’m not sure Mayor Bloomberg would have any real authority to say where they are deployed, anyway.

New York City actually has a much lower rate of violent crime than most other large American cities, although most of America seems to think New York is the most dangerous place in the country.

Boy howdy, as Rachel Maddow says — are people ever desperate to get gas. I saw long lines to gas pumps on the teevee, but there are lines here, too. A lot of the gas stations are still closed, and the ones that are open have lines stretching easily a quarter mile, some maybe close to half a mile. Glad I filled the tank last week.

On to politics: Nate Silver has Mitt’s chance to win down to 16.3 percent. Whoa. Although individual polls are all over the place, averages at both the national and state level seems to show a clear increase in support for the President. The Sandy effect, perhaps?

Karl Rove already is blaming Hurricane Sandy for shutting down Romney’s momentum. You know argument’s going to be made that the President’s re-election is illegitimate because Sandy impacted the campaigns. How dare the real world interfere with politics!

But I also want to mention something Professor Krugman said a couple of days ago —

Well, what if we’ve been misunderstanding Rove? We’ve been seeing him as a man dedicated to helping angry right-wing billionaires take over America. But maybe he’s best thought of instead as an entrepreneur in the business of selling his services to angry right-wing billionaires, who believe that he can help them take over America. It’s not the same thing.

And while Rove the crusader is looking — provisionally, of course, until the votes are in — like a failure, Rove the businessman has just had an amazing, banner year.

Earlier this month’s Rove’s Crossroads GPS Super PAC was said to be propping up Mitt’s campaign. All a scam to part rich fools from their money? Of course, I’m sure Karl would prefer that Mittens win, especially since the rubes won’t be so likely to part with millions of dollars next election season.

And then there are the other rubes —

I love this —

If you missed the benefit concert on NBC last night, I thought this was the best part (even with microphone malfunction at the start):

And now, the crazy: Fox News accused NBC of holding an “Obama” concert in the guise of a benefit concert.

Update: The Breitbrats also are outraged. “Watch for the network to turn this into an ode to Obama’s grand and glorious leadership during Hurricane Sandy.” Worse, they called Bruce Springsteen an “old hack.” If they’d had any credibility to lose, that would have killed it.

For the record, I don’t recall that anyone mentioned President Obama or any other politician. I might have missed it, though.

The jobs report is out, and it’s decent. Greg Sargent summarizes.

The news will be taken as a relief by the Obama campaign. It will allow Obama to continue making the case that the economy is healing — and it will undercut Mitt Romney’s closing argument that only putting him in charge will bring about a “real recovery.” However, today’s numbers are unlikely to impact the presidential race in a dramatic way. It solidifies the fundamentals that have persisted for many months now — this is a weak recovery, but it is a recovery, which means a very close presidential race, with a narrow advantage to the incumbent.

What these numbers really mean is that the last remaining catastrophe that could have derailed Obama’s reelection effort didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, there are signs Mittens is in panic mode. Alex Seitz-Wald says that Romney campaign ads are getting more desperate. As I wrote yesterday, he’s trying to tie President Obama to Fidel Castro. He’s doubling down on the lies about the auto bailout and has brought back the ads claiming that Obama “gutted” the welfare work requirement. In other words, he’s trying to stampede as many low-information voters as he can to the polls.

Also, Jonathan Capehart comments on a Romney super-PAC ad that reminds black voters Lincoln (a Republican!) freed the slaves! Yeah, that’s gonna work.

Mitt also has been “expanding the map” at the last minute, going into states in which he doesn’t have a prayer. Seitz-Wald:

Now take a look at where Romney is campaigning in the waning days of the campaign. There’s no bigger weapon in the campaign’s arsenal than the candidate himself, so where it sends him is a good sign of where its priorities are. The Romney campaign has been insisting that it’s in such a strong position that it’s expanding the map by making a play for mostly safe blue states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Michigan and even New Mexico (where Obama won by 15 points in 2008). And indeed, both campaigns or the super PACs supporting them are now up with ads in these states.

But Romney isn’t going anywhere near those states. He’s doing three events in Virginia today, which he should have put away weeks ago so he could concentrate on other states. Tomorrow he heads to Wisconsin, where’s he’s still the deep underdog, and after that Ohio, which he absolutely needs to win, but is still down. Then it’s to Colorado, where he may win but Obama has been making a mini comeback. Then he’s off to Iowa and New Hampshire, where he’s down, but could really stand to win.

More likely, the “expand the map” strategy is about his campaign and their allies having more money than they need in the real swing states and a desire to “keep the ‘momentum’ storyline going,” as Amy Walter notes, even if it’s no longer true.

Romney must believe he has Florida already, or else he’d be spending half of his time there. If he loses Florida it’s probably all over for him. But the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll has Romney and the President dead even in Florida. Nate Silver gives Romney a slight edge in Florida, but calls it a tossup.

Steve Kornacki thinks the “expand the map” strategy is a sign of both desperation and incompetence. At the last minute, Romney is pushing his campaign into states he has been ignoring for months and which are all but sewed up for Obama. He might be competitive in those states now, Kornacki says, if he had been campaigning in them all along. But he didn’t, and he’s not.

This is surreal. A man at a Romney rally interrupts Mitts speech and holds up a sign that says “End Climate Silence,” and the crowd snatches away the sign and begins chanting USA! USA!

Righties: Do learn to make sense someday. Thanks much.

Seriously, how miswired do you have to be to assume the USA! chant is a normal response to this situation? Even if you disagree that climate change caused Frankenstorm, what does USA! have to do with anything? And yeah, I kind of know that they associate their twisted opinions with Real Americanism and patriotism, and that’s the problem.

Elsewhere — Jamelle Bouie writes about Mitt’s efforts in FLorida, which really is a must-win state for him. I was playing with the Electoral College numbers this morning, and it became obvious that if Mitt loses Florida, it’s pretty much all over for him unless he pulls big upsets in at least a couple of big states that are probably going to go for Obama, like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

And Florida’s a real toss-up, leaning Romney by only a hair in the polls. I’m wondering if the stories about Mitt wanting to dismantle FEMA might pull it toward Obama. Mittens is trying to tie Obama to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, which seems absurd to me, but maybe that sells in Miami.

See also Greg Sargent, “Mitt Romney’s Kamikaze strategy.”

First, this morning Nate Silver has the President’s chances of winning the election up to 79 percent, which is 8 points higher than a week ago. It would appear the late deciders are going in his direction. See also “Oct. 31: Obama’s Electoral College ‘Firewall’ Holding in Polls.”

(And I just noticed the lights are on in the hallway, which I hope means all the power is restored to the building. Maybe I’ll have heat and hot water pretty soon.)

George Will spins a column entirely out of straw men to argue that the Obama campaign has become “empty” and “strident.”

Seems to me the Romney campaign is, like, stoned. They think they’ve got Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota — all solid blue, Nate says. They think they have a shot at Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Nate says, not likely. Paler blue, but still blue.

I gather that the Romney camp thinks Obama voters in these states won’t be enthusiastic enough to vote (or will be prevented from voting). Only Romney supporters are enthusiastic enough to vote. That’s how they are figuring it. Also Karl “I have THE math” Rove has some theory about why the polls are wrong, which Sam Wang shoots down.

Update: I’ve been playing with this interactive map. Going by Nate Silver’s numbers, if President Obama only wins states that are solid blue, meaning that he has at least a 90 percent chance of winning, then Romney wins. But if Obama wins just the states in which he has at least a 75 percent chance of winning, then he’s got 281 electoral votes, and Obama wins.

Obama can lose all of the tossup states — Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado — and still win the electoral college vote. Romney has to win all of the tossup states plus Ohio, or if not Ohio at least two other states Obama is likely to win. If Romney loses either Florida or Virginia, the odds that he will pick off enough upsets to make up the difference grow very long.

For example, if Romney loses Virginia, he’s got to pick off all three of the states in which Obama’s chances of winning are above 75 but less than 80 percent — Ohio, Iowa, and New Hampshire — to get to 272.

So, while a Romney win is possible, he’s got to pull off some upsets to do it.

Found this video while looking for something else — very timely.