That column waffled a bit, but built a compelling case that Frank had nearly even odds of taking the prize.

No such equivocation today. On Silver’s 538.com site, Silver makes his case explicit. The headline reads, “Projection: Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes.”

Silver gets there through means of what to this math dummy is a pretty dense regression analysis that I will not attempt to explain. Read the column yourself. He shows his work.

Silver acknowledges that the error bars on his analysis are relatively high, so the projection should be read only to suggest that Franken is the favorite in the recount by the slimmest of margins. Silver adds:

“Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that the high rate of ballot challenges is in fact hurting Franken disproportionately, and that once such challenges are resolved, Franken stands to gain ground, perhaps enough to let him overtake Coleman.”

Despite Silver’s guarded optimism for a Franken victory, the Coleman margin has grown slightly over the last few days, from +167 Saturday to +180 tonight, according to a Star Tribune news graphic posted at 8:04 p.m. The recount is now 68 percent complete.

It gets interestinger and interestinger….

Not much to say, beyond “bummer,” about the death of the only musician to remain at Hendrix’s side throughout the duration of the superstar guitarist’s career. But it strikes me that his passing marks the first time that a major ’60s supergroup has lost all of its members.

The Experience is dead. Long live the Experience.

You need to read pretty deep into the column to get what Silver is driving at, and you’re going to have to be patient with all the numbers and matrices–not to mention his somewhat waffling conclusion.

But bear with him, and you’ll see that Silver makes a pretty compelling case to suggest that Franken has nearly even odds of overcoming Coleman’s slim lead when the recount ends.

Worth noting: Silver’s numbers are based on slightly old data. At the point Silver put his report together, Coleman led Franken by 226 votes. That margin has since been reduced to 206 votes. That would suggest a slight corresponding improvement in Franken’s odds.

Of course, the lawyers are all over this one. There is little chance this will be resolved without going to court, regardless of the final recount tally.

Get ready, folks. Minnesota is about to stage its own highly provincial version of Bush v. Gore.

That leaves 12 electoral votes yet to be counted, 11 from Missouri and one from a single congressional district in Nebraska, a state where electoral votes are apportioned district by district.

(An aside: That district-by-district apportionment system is one I favor nationwide as eminently more fair than the current winner-take-all electoral college, despite arguments by my liberal friends who worry that such a system would take California out of the auto-Dem column. Wouldn’t bother me. Fair is fair.)

It appeared to me when I last looked that the votes remaining to be counted in Missouri were from a Republican county, so I’d assume the Show-Me State will ultimately be awarded to McCain. I won’t hazard a guess about what’s going on in Nebraska.

However you look at it, though, I underestimated the tilt of American voters in favor of Obama. In my Oct. 27 column, I predicted a 355-184 electoral vote split for Obama. I specifically did not think North Carolina would go for a black man. (I did think he would win Montana–which he did not.)

Shows what I know.

MSNBC is now showing that the actual electoral-vote margin is 364-173.

As those who know me are aware (even if they don’t believe me, and my red-state pals don’t), I am not a Democrat. Nor am I, as some of my fellow church-goers believe, a Republican. But I did vote for Obama.

Now, two days after the fact of this mind-blowing election, I can’t shake the feeling that somehow I’ve been startled awake, and that somehow I’m back in a familiar reality, awakened from a bad eight-year dream–and living once again in the United States.

So, once again it’s morning in America, dear readers. But, as our new president-elect is no doubt painfully aware, it’s looking like it’s going to be one bear of a day.

“There’s some great stuff coming out from conservative thinkers basically saying that this last year, the Republican Party declared itself hostile to anyone with more brain activity than [Terry] Schiavo.”