Prediction Time: Electoral College maps are the new March Madness brackets

OK, amigos. First things first: None of us want to see the full enactment of the contraception mandate, the Obamacare abortion mandate or any of the other nasty stuff a second Obama term is likely to hold. But we Catholics tend to do our best work when we're being persecuted. So whatever happens tonight, let's take a deep breath and praise God.

Secondly, if you don't like my prediction, there's really only one thing you can do about it: send angry emails to Matt go vote. And then pray and fast and make reparations for our country. I've been pretty uptight about what's coming tonight, and spending some time before the Blessed Sacrament was just what the Divine Physician ordered.

On to the prediction:

I'm not going to bother with a ton of analysis because we pretty much covered that over the last week. This map is closer than I might have guessed in my first post, which might mean I'm hedging. An Obama victory could also easily include wins in Virginia and Colorado, pushing the president's total up over 300 electoral votes.

On the other hand, I'm not super confident in this prediction. I would not be surprised if Romney picks off three or four states off my map and wins. My estimate is that the president has about a 60 percent chance of being re-elected tonight. Is that great news? Obviously not. But I imagine that about five weeks ago, we'd have taken those odds in a heartbeat.

We've also got a Senate race in Wisconsin today where one option is a candidate who brought publicly funded contraception to Wisconsin, helped usher in funding for embryo-destructive stem cell research and recently said our society has a moral obligation to kill babies conceived in rape. And the other candidate is...Tammy Baldwin. Too late to start a write-in campaign for "Mayan Apocalypse"? While I think Obama carries Wisconsin, I'll guess that Tommy Thompson is declared the winner sometime after midnight tonight.

What Not to Watch For
It can be easy to get swept up by false indicators. Here are some things that should not excite, nor trouble you:

• Exit polling: It's almost always junk. View the Drudge Report with extreme skepticism today.
• The number of people at your polling place: it's not representative of your state at large.
• Which candidate is winning with 12 percent of the vote in: Precincts aren't reported evenly, and early numbers might be coming from conservative or liberal strongholds.
• How long it's taking the major media outlets to call red states for Romney: I don't know if it's ideological bias or some sort of systematic bias, but the major networks tend to delay declaring winners in Republican states. 

What to Watch For
Isn't it strange how presidential election results in the majority of our states won't matter? I'll help you sort through which states and bellwethers to keep on eye on tonight.

Round 1: East Coast: We'll see a lot of early action as the first polls close tonight.
Knockout punches: If Obama wins a single Atlantic state south of the Mason Dixon line (Florida, Virginia, North Carolina), it's over. Go to bed. On the other hand, if Romney wins Pennsylvania, the Obama presidency is finished.
Bellwether: Neither candidate NEEDS New Hampshire and its measly four electoral votes. But New England's only bastion of conservatism might serve as an indicator for what's going on in other swing states.

Round 2: The Midwest: This is where the race is likely to be decided. Romney can lose Ohio and still win by picking up Iowa and Wisconsin, but it's not likely. Ohio is traditionally the most conservative of the three. In short, the race pivots on the Buckeye State. If we were to see Romney pull off a shocking upset in Minnesota or Michigan, we'd be looking at a historical landslide. Don't count on that.

Round 3: Moving West: There's significantly less to see here. Colorado is the key state. If we do have an extremely close election, it could be decisive. Still, I suspect the Eastern and Central time zones will leave us pretty clear on the trajectory of the race before Colorado is called. Nevada is considered a swing state, but it's trending Obama. If Romney wins, we're again looking at a landslide.

I'm going to ignore the West Coast because it's pretty solidly favoring Obama.

So there you have it. We'll be back tomorrow with a post-mortem.