During the latter stages of the recent pleasantness much punditry was devoted to predictions of the eventual outcome. Here are the final predictions a nuber of of the best known, with a red bar indicating the actual result. Note that Professor Sabato at the UVa Center for Politics was just one electoral vote off, calling for 364 Electoral Votes, but since he made no prediction about the popular vote outcome, humorist Bill Maher came closest overall.

Who are these people?

• Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard
• Chris Cillizza is a political reporter for the Washington Post
• Eleanor Clift is a columnist for Newsweek
• Erick Erickson spreads cheer at Red State
• Arianna Huffington is the founder of the Huffington Post
• Morton Kondracke is the executive editor of Roll Call
• Bill Maher is a political humorist
• Charles Mahtesian is Politico’s national politics editor
• Tom Mann studies national politics for the Brookings Institution
• Chris Matthews is with MSNBC
• Ed Morrissey's blog is Hot Air
• Markos Moulitsas blogs at the Daily Kos
• Ed Rollins is a Republican campaign consultant
• Larry Sabato is Director of the UVa Center for Politics
• Nate Silver is the founder of FiveThirtyEight.com
• Juan Williams is a Senior Correspondent for NPR News

David RePass, on October 21, issued a prediction of the electoral vote that is more nuanced than those included in the chart: Sure Obama 286, Likely Obama 43, Toss Up 46, Sure McCain 163.

(Dave Sagarin, November 10, 2008)