This week in the saga

Seventy-five to one, chalked on the slate before midnight — and then Pennsylvania stops counting. His man's Senate race hangs uncounted for days while the stacks grow, France is invoked as the gold standard of elections, and the counsel he sends his doctor is the purest distillation of the doctrine: declare victory now, it is harder to cheat a man who has already crowned himself. A courtroom hands him a vindication to spread his arms at, and the week closes at half past midnight with the number that always helps — ninety-eight percent — while Georgia sharpens tomorrow's knives.