The Nader factor?

Yes, Missouri appears to be the only state still trying to decide who won the Presidential election. The Secretary of State's website has McCain up by .2% or only 5,859 votes.

There will be plenty of time to assess how Missouri has lost its bellwether status and what that says about the political direction the state is taking but in the meantime, let's take a look at the polling.

The last Pollster average had Obama leading by a hair, 48.5% to 47.4%--clearly within the margin of error so the flip to a McCain lead is not that surprising. What is surprising is that Ralph Nader pulled in 17,769 votes while Bob Barr pulled in 11,355. All totaled, third party candidates pulled in 36,347 votes, a large total and more than enough to swing this election one way or the other.

The breakdown of votes is even more telling. There were four third party tickets on the ballot in Missouri:

• The Wisconsin Green Party - 958
• The Constitution Party - 8181
• The Libertarian Party - 11,355
• The Independent Party - 17,769

Clearly, if Nader were not on the ballot, Obama would be leading the race. 17,769 is a healthy number of votes that should swing Democratic. That would bring Obama's total up to 1,454,583, giving him a (relatively) healthy lead of 11,910 votes over McCain. This is also a fairly likely scenario -- there's a lot more dissatisfaction among Republicans than Democrats, making the rise of third party conservative candidates like Barr almost inevitable.

But what if all four were not on the ballot? We can assume the Libertarian vote (Barr) would go to McCain while the Independent vote (Nader) would go to Obama. Likewise the Wisconsin Green vote would end up in Obama's court. The Constitution Party is an odd mix--but likely McCain votes.

So, the final totals would be 1,455,541 for Obama and for 1,462,209 McCain, giving McCain a slightly stronger lead (6668 votes) but essentially changing nothing.