When I came home bragging about a perfect report card somewhere around age eight, Mother warned me I shouldn’t break my arm patting myself on the back.

Some seven decades later I disobey Mother once again and risk that fractured ulna by basking in the warmth of some of the calls I’ve made on your behalf, Dear Reader— though they sent my editor’s blood pressure gushing into zipcode territory.

I note again that about a year ago I anticipated John McCain’s Lazarus-like rise in the primaries, but warned also that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would “make tacos” out of him. Pass the salsa, please.

On Feb. 14 this column said Obama’s nomination was all but inevitable. Despite some scary moments, I reassured you it would happen.

Almost week earlier, in a highly controversial Perspective article in the Chicago Tribune, I described a changing map that would lead to an electoral landslide for “a Democrat to be named later.”

It pointed to a series of states that George Bush carried in 2004 that I expected to change from red to blue because of social, economic and demographic changes. Leading them was Ohio, followed by New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona—but cautioned that should McCain become the nominee Arizona would stay red. (Wait til next time, folks). It also said Virginia would go blue along with Iowa and possibly Missouri. (At this writing it appears Obama lost Missouri by a razor-thin margin.)

I did not anticipate Indiana, of all places, nor North Carolina, both of which turned blue—as did those listed above.

A couple of weeks ago I gave you my final prediction, stating that the most likely scenario would be a 6 to 7 point win for the skinny guy from Chicago. It looks as if he’ll wind up somewhere near the mid-point of those numbers. I also posited an Electoral College total of 340—still not quite believing that he would carry Indiana and Florida. Silly me!

He has 365 electoral votes without Missouri—including a single EV from Nebraska, which splits its count by congressional district. (So does Maine, where Obama got both of its EVs.)

I predicted a gain of 20–25 House seats for the Democrats. When all the results are in it will be somewhere in between. I also called a minimum gain of 8 Senate seats; at this writing the number is 6 with only an outside possibility of growing.

I am about to take off for a month in Paris, but I will continue the column from there, offering ruminations from afar on some of the meaning of this election beyond the startling numbers and the obvious history-making aspects. I believe the win portends a long-term Democratic majority and I’ll explain why.

I’ll also offer some concerns I have about this presidency, but I want to wait until I see how the cabinet gets filled out—especially in the economic and international arenas.

Before signing off this week I would like to point out that I lost most of the respect I once had for McCain, though his splendid concession speech redeemed him in small part.

I found nothing redeeming whatsoever about his choice of vice president, who recently pouted that criticisms of her by key Republicans in the campaign were “cruel” and “mean-spirited.” She should know the meaning of those words, having been the attack dog who viciously slimed Obama in the ugliest of ways while doing her best to reignite the cold and cultural wars.

Her reappearance as a leader of the Republican Party in the years to come will help reassure its minority status for another generation or two.

But as a Jew I reserve a special, very large dose of vitriol for a small band of my co-religionists who led a dishonest, cheating and totally disgraceful campaign against Obama centered on making him a Muslim, an anti-Semite and an enemy of Israel—even invoking another Holocaust to strike fear into the hearts of other Jews.

There are many legitimate reasons why politically conservative Jews (or anyone else) could oppose Obama’s generally liberal policies. Calling him a Muslim or enemy of Israel is not one of them. Fortunately, those attacks had little effect. Obama retained most of the Jewish vote won by Kerry and Gore (about 79 percent by some counts).

If those in our faith believed in a hell, there would be a special fire to roast those lying, racist pigs for all eternity.

As for the “Independent” senator from Connecticut with the Howdy-Doody grin—also a co-religionist—may his photo forever illustrate the word “shanda” in the Yiddish-American dictionary.

“Shanda,” my Gentile friends, is a disgrace before the world—what some of you may know as a Judas.

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Don Rose is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer