Massachusets liberals sweat Minnesota

The New York Times has a highly entertaining piece today chronicling the mass anxiety of liberals as they await Tuesday’s election results. Reporter Michael Powell comes up with many gems, including a woman from San Francisco who just recently viewed her first John McCain campaign sign on a trip to Monterey, but I was particularly amused by this anecdote about Minnesota:

Richard Schrader, a senior staff member for a national environmental organization, lives in Amherst, Mass., where politics start liberal and traipse left. He is fairly liberal, but his neighbors worry that he does not worry nearly enough. “They wake up, drink that pot of coffee and hit the polling Web sites,” Mr. Schrader said. “Too much good news has to be a lie.”

Recently he sat down with a friend who was sweating about Minnesota.

“Minnesota?” Mr. Schrader told his friend. “What, are you kidding me? Obama’s up 14 points there.”

The friend shook his head sadly. Take off seven points for hidden racial animus. Subtract another five for polling error. It is down to two points, and that is within the margin of error in sampling, and that could mean Mr. Obama might be behind.

“It was perversely impressive,” Mr. Schrader said.