Linda Hirshman considers what Obama’s WPA-like proposal would mean for women:

Mr. Obama compared his infrastructure plan to the Eisenhower-era construction of the Interstate System of highways. It brings back the Eisenhower era in a less appealing way as well: there are almost no women on this road to recovery.

Back before the feminist revolution brought women into the workplace in unprecedented numbers, this would have been more understandable. But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower unemployment rate has actually risen just as fast as men’s. A just economic stimulus plan must include jobs in fields like social work and teaching, where large numbers of women work.

The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force.

It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well, especially in the alternative energy area. A broad study by the United States Conference of Mayors found that half the projected new jobs in any green area are in engineering, a field that is only 12 percent female, or in the heavily male professions of law and consulting; the rest are in such traditional male areas as manufacturing, agriculture and forestry. And like companies that build roads, alternative energy firms also employ construction workers and engineers.

Ireland’s staking its claim to Obama:

Here’s a great set of photos from behind the scenes with the Obama family on Election Night.

Obama won Omaha, Nebraska.  (Nebraska and Maine are the only states that split its electoral votes.)

I love this:

In truth, from the moment Michelle Obama stepped on to that podium at the Democrat convention what seems like, ooh, about three million years ago, we all secretly knew which way this race was going. Sure, he had big, sticky-out ears; sure, all those luvvies made that embarrassing YouTube song about him; but if Michelle thought that he was OK — if she chose him — then he just had to be a good man.

Cheers to America’s next First Lady.  I have no doubt she will make women everywhere very, very proud.  Read the rest of the profile here.

I have lots of photos and video from tonight’s partying in the DC streets.  Will post later.  Suffice it to say: Yes, we can, and yes, we did.  Here’s to hope.

Something tells me the John McCain Cabbage Patch kid will be heavily discounted after tonight, but Palin will be hot for a while longer.

Obama, of course, will be on every kid’s Christmas list this year.

Slate magazine’s final electoral map projection puts 273 electoral votes in the “safe Dem” column.  There’s a very good chance this election will be the sort that my generation has never seen: one that is decided early.

As an economist, I believe that competition drives the parties to adapt and market themselves to evenly divide the electorate (thank you, game theory).  But something happened this time to give us a different result: The GOP miscalculated.  It’s like Coca-Cola’s experiment with “New Coke”–they simply misjudged what people wanted, and they are going to pay, big time.  Like Coca-Cola, the GOP has enough brand recognition to bounce back from this, but it’s always odd to see a big player make such a huge misstep.

I am a newly-religious follower of Ross Douthat’s blog on conservative politics, because I’m very curious to see whose heads roll, which new leaders take the helm, and how the Republican platform changes to attract more voters.  The next 8 years should be very interesting, and very fun.

Nate Silver has your hour-by-hour guide to election night.

Tomorrow, Barack Obama will become the first Democratic Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win an outright majority of the votes cast on Election Day — and with it a sizeable majority of electoral votes — making him the next President of the United States.

We make this projection knowing that the gap is closing both nationally and in key states; it is our sense, however, that this trend would have to continue for another 10 days for the election to swing back to McCain.

Read their rationale here.