In the age of media overload, how do you decide what’s worth reading? Fortunately, Mediaite has put together a web-focused list of blogs, Twitter feeds, publications, and cable sources to guide you through the day:

Online

Intrade: If you just care about odds, odds, odds, Intrade’s prediction market remains a fast, fairly accurate gauge of who’s expected to win, though it’s sorely lacking in context. As of this morning, New Jersey is neck-and-neck, with Democrat Jon Corzine the very slight favorite to win the governorship, Conservative Doug Hoffman is the clear favorite in NY-23, and Republican Bob McDonnell and who-knows-what-he-is Mike Bloomberg are all but guaranteed to win Virginia and New York, respectively. Stay tuned throughout the day.

FiveThirtyEight: Though he’s faded into the shadows a bit since last year’s election, and though he’s as much as given up on predicting NY-23, Nate Silver remains a go-to election blogger. As one of the few who really knows how to parse statistics and holds off from imposing his own (liberal) views on them, Silver is a vital read as results trickle in; if his thorough pre-election coverage yesterday is any indication, we’re in for a real treat.

Politico: Politico is going wall-to-wall on the election as only a well-staffed political publication can. Their “2009 Election Central” is already packed with a morning’s worth of fascinating articles and analyses, and you can count on them to keep their reserves well-stocked and well-reported throughout the day.

Governing: Governing‘s Josh Goodman and Alan Greenblatt will also be liveblogging the results this evening, and won’t shy away from the obscure stuff.

NPR: NPR’s Mark Memmott and Ken Rudin have written that they will be live-blogging results from “Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Houston, Atlanta, and other voting places today.” They’ve also provided a handy guide of what to watch for, not just in the hot-button races, but in lower-profile ones as well.

National Review: The Corner will be offering election commentary throughout the day, but if you want the nitty-gritty, Jim Geraghty‘s Campaign Spot is the place to go for thoughtful analysis from a conservative stance.


Twitter: There’s a whole lot of noise to parse through, but Twitter remains an incomparable source of second-by-second intelligence. Right now, #VoteNoOn1 and #MarryME are surging, both references to Maine’s Proposition 1, which would wipe out a gay marriage equality bill passed by the legislature earlier this year. The self-explanatory #njgov, #vagov, and #ny23, are worth watching as well; as of this morning, they’re currently dominated by conservative Twitterers.

Print

Guess you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow morning — or, in the case of some magazines, until next week. How about that? When you do, though, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker (which will all, in some measure, be scooped by their own websites) will be worth the read.

TV

Mediabistro has a helpful guide to the election coverage plans for CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Fox Business, and CNBC, which includes guests, anchors, correspondents, and programming schedules for the cable networks.

Finally, be sure to tune back into Mediaite: our very own Steve Krakauer will be following the cable news coverage at CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC as results come in tonight.


It should be an exciting evening, and its results will no doubt dominate the news cycle for the next few days. If you think we missed anything, leave a comment below or send a tip to tips@mediaite.com.

It’s because this race is a referendum on town halls, on tea partying, on the 9/12 Project.

Last night Hannity had on Hoffman to attempt to seal the victory, with a lengthy interview at the top of his show. But it wasn’t just Hoffman – the candidate (who has never run for political office and has said he never planned to) sat quietly while he was flanked by Fred Thompson and Jeri Thompson, who sounded quite politically polished herself. In fact, for the majority of the interview, Hoffman sat quietly, hands folded in his lap, periodically saying things like, “We’ve got to fight!” while Hannity and the Thompson’s took the lead.

“I wasn’t paying attention to it as closely as you were,” said Hannity to Jeri. “Then I started reading your emails and I started wrapping my arms around it, and it wasn’t just me by the way there were other conservatives Mark Levin is another one, and we spoke at length about it.”

Earlier in the evening, Hannity’s lead partner in the election of Hoffman, Glenn Beck, spent nearly 10 minutes hammering home just how very important this run-off race was. “I really don’t care about local politics all that much,” he said, which is pretty much what the Watertown Daily Times found out about Hoffman himself, who doesn’t even live in the district. “I really don’t follow this, I mean I do a national show, but I am watching this one, but not because Doug Hoffman is all that electric…” (and Glenn Beck knows electric) “…I don’t know much about him but from what I do know I seem to like, but who knows.”

Then he played a clip of his interview with Hoffman on his radio show earlier that day. But he didn’t play the part that’s getting all that attention.

>>> NEXT PAGE: Take a guess who Hoffman calls a “mentor”…and why it’s not just Beck/Hannity (and video/audio)

The NY-23 special election continues to get stranger and stranger. Now that Republican Dede Scozzafava has dropped out of the race and endorsed her Democratic opponent, Bill Owens, it’s fair to say that it’s one for the history books, regardless of whether Owens or Conservative challenger Doug Hoffman prevails.

But what will they record? Pundits on both sides of the aisle are already writing the rough drafts.

This past weekend, the New York Times‘ Frank Rich denounced Hoffman’s supporters, including Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Bill Kristol, as “G.O.P. Stalinists” committed to ideological purity over electable candidates. According to Rich, “it’s even better for Democrats if Hoffman wins. Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will redouble its support of primary challengers to 2010 G.O.P. candidates they regard as impure.”

The very ideological right-wingers that Rich denounces, on the other hand, are celebrating what they rightly see as a successful grassroots rebellion against the party machine. Two weeks ago, in a blog post supporting Hoffman’s candidacy, Kristol wrote that “Today, the Wall Street Journal has a story on the race with the headline Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy. The truth is the opposite: The GOP establishment complicates the Republican and conservative comeback strategy.”

Recent conservative analysis is going on in much the same vein; over at her blog, Doug Hoffman early adopter Michelle Malkin dismisses Scozzafava as a “radical leftist” and a “spoiler.” Meanwhile, Drudge-looking conservative aggregator TCOT Report, which has been blanket covering this story, denounces the former Republican candidate as “Benedict Arnold Scozzafava:”

As Hot Air points out, commenters on Newt Gingrich’s blog are flaying him over his support for Scozzafava, which he expediently switched over to Hoffman after Scozzafava’s withdrawal.

Meanwhile, Politico has the fascinating story behind Scozzafava’s endorsement of Bill Owens, which involves back-alley New York State politics and a possible phone call from Rahm Emanuel:

When some senior Democrats worried Scozzafava might be wavering about the endorsement, according to another account, the White House got Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the most powerful figures in the state, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to place calls to the assemblywoman on Saturday evening to coax her into delivering it. Sen. Charles Schumer, who had been in touch with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and [Rep. Steve] Israel, also weighed in.

Two senior Democrats with ties to the White House praised Cuomo’s role in the operation, saying they were confident Scozzafava was on board after learning that she told Cuomo: “You’re going to be the next governor of New York.”

Also critical was Silver’s assurance, in a phone conversation with Scozzafava, that the state Assembly Democratic caucus would embrace her if she chose to switch parties, now viewed as a real possibility after her endorsement Sunday of Owens.

As is obligatory to say in all blog posts about NY-23, it will be interesting to see how this plays out; even Nate Silver has essentially thrown his hands up and given up on prognosticating on this one given the number of unknown variables.

It’s worth pointing out that online betting market InTrade (remember InTrade?) currently gives Hoffman a 70% chance of winning.

It isn’t often that a politician of Sarah Palin‘s national clout weighs in heavily on an obscure House race, much less does so against her own party’s candidate. When Palin endorsed Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman over GOP moderate Dede Scozzafava, it was a fair question to ask: “why?” Mainstream media accounts that only touch on Scozzafava’s political beliefs are just telling part of the story.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CBS News all frame the issue in fairly broad terms. From the Times’ Caucus blog:

Mrs. Palin backed Doug Hoffman, the Conservative party nominee, in the traditionally Republican 23d district. The Republican nominee, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, is a moderate who has broken with the G.O.P. by supporting same-sex marriage and abortion rights…

…While Mrs. Palin’s endorsement could anger some New York State Republicans, it could also help the former Alaska Governor in appealing to her conservative base as she considers a presidential run in 2012.

Obviously, this is a big part of the story — but why zero in on this moderate in particular? Indeed, according to Google Trends, Scozzafava’s name has only taken off as a search term over the course of the past week:

Movement conservatives never loved Scozzafava, but until recently she was the favorite to win the race, according to CBS. Then, on October 16th, a poll showed her trailing Owens, thanks to an unexpectedly strong showing by Hoffman. Here’s the play-by-play from there:

The full-throated Scozzafava backlash began in earnest, counterintuitively enough, when Newt Gingrich endorsed her in response: that’s the “B” on the Google Trends chart. The conservative web almost immediately snapped back, with Michelle Malkin, who had repeatedly gone after Scozzafava before, leading the charge: “the NRCC is using conservatives’ money to back a radical leftist and attack a bona fide, viable conservative candidate for Congress in a safe Republican district. Gingrich has endorsed the radical leftist.”

The real kicker, though, came when a blogger for The Weekly Standard, John McCormack, persistently questioned  Scozzafava’s conservative credentials. On October 19th, Scozzafava’s campaign called the police on McCormack for hounding the candidate, allegedly shouting and making her uncomfortable after a GOP dinner. On October 20th, her campaign leaked an email exchange of theirs to TPM (which even Kos questioned, saying the emails looked reasonable).

This video has blown up across the conservative blogosphere:

On the 21st, when McCormack produced a tape recording of their exchange, the AP concluded he didn’t shout or threaten the candidate, and the political burial of Scozzafava commenced at an astonishing pace. At noon yesterday, the National Review called for her withdrawal from the race; later in the afternoon, they cited six other sites that had done the same thing, including RedState, the Washington Times, and Big Government. At 5:28, a perfect time tow work one’s way into the next day’s news cycle, Sarah Palin posted a Facebook note titled “Support Doug Hoffman,” and the rest is history.

A likely result of this hoopla, ironically, is that a Democrat may wind up taking office in what had been a solidly Republican district. To Scozzafava’s enemies, who are more ideologues than political operatives, that may not even matter at this point. The success of their concerted effort to take her down — in which, as is increasingly the case, the web played a pivotal role — would be prize enough.