Why I'm anxious, but not worried (updated)

All my friends who know what an Obamabot I am were asking me today if I was worried. I usually responded by saying that I feel anxious, but not worried.

Part of why I'm not worried is that I have a very keen memory of the worst political moment of my life. It happened on November 2, 2004...the day President George W. Bush was re-elected. I was never a huge John Kerry fan, but by that time we knew what a train wreck our current president was. And I absolutely couldn't believe this country would re-elect him.

That was also the first election where we all had access to the internet. Leading up to it I watched the polls like a hawk. In hindsight, the news was generally not good. But it wasn't bad enough to make me lose hope. I remember thinking that the polls were likely skewed, or that something big would happen to change things, or that the Democrat's enthusiasm about getting rid of Bush would pull things out in the end. In other words, I didn't believe what I was seeing because I didn't want to.

In the end the polls were right and we lost.

Now...flip all that around and its a perfect description of what we are hearing from Republicans these days. The news for them also isn't good. But they're pulling out every argument I did to convince themselves otherwise (with help from the media who need a horserace to the end).

I suspect that all of that won't work out for them any better than it did for me 8 years ago.

As I write this, Nate Silver gives President Obama an 86% chance of winning re-election. On the other end of the political spectrum, Real Clear Politics has the President winning with 303 electoral votes in their "no toss-ups" map. Sure, conservative pundits are making the case for other outcomes, but those who are actually crunching the numbers all see it the same.

The number crunchers were right in 2004 and I suspect they'll be right this time around. And so I'm anxious...but not worried.

UPDATE: Nate Silver just updated his forecast...91.4% 92.2% chance of an Obama win!!!!! Oh, and Florida just turned a beautiful shade of blue :-)