In this week's excellent New York cover story about the impending Barack Obama administration, Nate Silver and his election-predicting Web site, FiveThirtyEight.com, get mentioned three times — twice by author John Heilemann and once by Democrat Chuck Schumer.

Silver, who's taking time out of his day job as a baseball stats geek to be the subject of his own New York story (and answer our questions, has rapidly become the go-to voice of the blogosphere in the 2008 elections. That he would be cited three times in the span of a couple thousand words is a testament to the accuracy of his projections (and it also doesn't hurt that 538.com currently has Obama as a huge favorite). The quotes from the article are after the jump.

Page two: "Judging by the mash-up of polls at the new online bible for political-stats obsessives, FiveThirtyEight.com, Obama is leading in every state that Kerry won in 2004."

Page three: "If Obama racks up the totals currently projected by FiveThirtyEight's resident numbers guru, Nate Silver, his Election Night tally will be impressive indeed: 52.2 percent of the popular vote (making him the first Democrat to break 50 since Jimmy Carter) and 354 electoral votes (a modest landslide)."

Page three: "When I asked him to rate his party's prospects of reaching the magic number, Schumer cited —what else? — FiveThirtyEight: 'They said there's an over 50 percent chance that we pick up seven seats, 40 percent that we pick up eight, and 30 that we pick up nine, and that's probably about accurate.'"