As I wrote back in June, you can gamble on the outcome of the presidential election on various betting sites.  On June 4th, Obama was running at -194.  I checked in after the Democratic convention but before the Palin bubble and the odds had dropped to -166.  Obviously they sank like a stone post convention as McCain’s polls shot through the roof.  Not sure where they bottomed out, but 2 days ago I looked and Obama was -122.  The economy and McCain’s stump gaffes of the last few days have pushed the line back to -143.

There are some cool sites out there that regress the various state by state polls and keep a running tally of the the two parties odds of winning in the electoral college.  I like the one from Princeton the best.  Because the EV estimator is based on less frequent state polls, it’s likely a lagging indicator.  The blogger guessed today that Obama’s should expect to win 300 Electoral votes based on recent national poll trends.

I’m still sticking to my meta analysis that Obama v McCain ends up playing out like Clinton vs. Dole in ‘96.  IMO McCain is already channeling Norm McDonald channeling Bob Dole.