Obama Offers Rahm Emanuel Job of White House Chief of Staff  —  ABC News has learned that President-elect Obama has offered the White House chief of staff job to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.  —  Emanuel, a knowledgeable source tells ABC News, has not yet given his answer.

Coleman vs. Franken: Recount looms  —  Minnesotans likely will have to wait for a winner in the U.S. Senate contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken.  —  One of the most bitter U.S. Senate races in Minnesota history continued to grind on early this morning, with Republican Sen. Norm Coleman …

California voters approve Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages  —  The measure was the most divisive on the state ballot.  Its passage throws into doubt the unions of thousands of recently wed couples.  —  A measure to once again ban gay marriage in California was passed by voters in Tuesday's election …

76 days to Inauguration - “A national catharsis”  —  Rahm Emanuel is top choice for chief of staff — Newsweek: Palin sprees worse than reported — Obama Day declared in Kenya — ABC's Jonathan Karl to Hill  —  Good Wednesday morning.  The New York Times banner is a single, capitalized word: “OBAMA.”

Hackers and Spending Sprees … The computer systems of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown “foreign entity,” prompting a federal investigation, NEWSWEEK reports today.  —  At the Obama headquarters in midsummer …

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job  —  WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America.  In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged …

Election 2008: what really happened  —  After a quick look at the election results and exit polls (from www.cnn.com), some thoughts:  —  1. The election was pretty close.  Obama won by about 5% of the vote, consistent with the latest polls and consistent with his forecast vote based on forecasts based on the economy.

Medvedev: Russia to Deploy Missiles in Response to U.S. Missile Shield  —  MOSCOW — Russia will deploy missiles near NATO member Poland in response to U.S. missile defense plans, President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday in his first state of the nation speech.

Reid, Lieberman to meet  —  (CNN) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will likely meet later this week with Joe Lieberman to discuss whether the Democrat-turned-Independent will be stripped of his Senate committee chairmanship, a senior Democratic leadership aide tells CNN.

No decision, no majority in Senate race  —  Chambliss, Martin waiting for final votes to be counted to see if runoff needed  —  Georgia's U.S. Senate race remained in doubt Wednesday morning as neither major party candidate had more than 50 percent of the vote.

A Way Out of the Wilderness  —  Well, we Republicans have just made history.  Not the type of history we wanted to make, mind you, but history nonetheless.  Not only did we lose the White House but, after losing our House and Senate majorities in 2006, we followed it up last night with even steeper losses in Congress.

Three huge, immediate reasons to be happy about last night  —  There are all sorts of reasons to view last night's events as an extremely positive development, including the fact that it was a truly crushing repudiation of the right-wing faction that has dominated the Republican Party for the last two decades.

Waxman to challenge Dingell  —  House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman is calling senior Democrats to seek the top spot on Energy and Commerce, according to Democrats on and off Capitol Hill.  —  This puts the Californian in a direct conflict with Energy …

Notes from the collapse  —  This morning, after having absorbed the substantial victory of Barack Obama, I noticed a couple of interesting items in the data.  Barack Obama certainly won this race, but he won it with just a little more votes than George Bush won in his re-election bid, and the turnout models came up short.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace  —  What must our enemies be thinking?  —  Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush.

Fight  —  Now back to the real world.  It's traditional that a new president get a honeymoon of some indefinite length.  It's also traditional for Republicans (and many conservatives) to act as Charlie Brown to Lucy with the football.  —  Obama will get the most lavish and extended honeymoon in history.

2008 turnout shatters all records  —  More than 130 million people turned out to vote Tuesday, the most ever to vote in a presidential election.  —  With ballots still being counted in some precincts into Wednesday morning, an estimated 64 percent of the electorate turned out, making 2008 the highest percentage turnout in generations.

Stevens leads Begich by thin margin  —  Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was leading challenger Mark Begich with most of the election returns in hand Tuesday night, despite being found guilty of seven felonies and polls showing him in deep trouble.  —  With more than 80 percent of the precincts reporting …

FIRST THOUGHTS: THE 44TH PRESIDENT  —  From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann  —  *** The 44th President: In a just a little more than four years, an Illinois state senator who delivered a rousing speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention will now become …