Liveblogging The Election

OK. Butt firmly in chair. Watching MSNBC (CNN has clearly decided to court conservatives, so fuck 'em) and getting TPM and fivethirtyeight up. Buckle up. Much beer, Scotch (Laphroiag...I don't share my damn scotch) and champagne on hand. Monitor my spelling over the evening.

5:25 CST
Talking Points Memo saying Exit Polls breaking strongly for Obama, with all the usual caveats.

5:54
Indiana is still damn close. 3% in. Not good for McCain. Dole is doing badly in NC against Hagan. I'm begining to get optimistic. One of my bellweather points is breaking Obama's way. Cautiously optimistic. 1st Sam Adams opened.

6:38
Jeez. What's with Virginia? Still only 3% reporting. Indiana still too close to call. I want my instant gratification.

7:01
MSNBC calls Pennsylvania and New Hampshire for Obama. And now, Virginia, Florida, Missouri and Indiana are too close to call. Allright. We're now close to being able to break out the Champagne.

7:17
Jeanne Shaheen takes the Senate seat from Sununu. Take that you phone bank jamming bastards. (A major Repub operative was convicted of illegal vote tampering in an election where NH went Kerry pretty hard...the jamming was almost CERTAINLY directed at keeping Shaheen from the Senate seat).

7:43
Hagan takes Dole's seat. +3 Seats for Dems. Still waiting on VA, IN, FL, MO. It may take until CA before Obama goes over 270.

8:02
Wisconsin goes Obama. Colorado too early to call. Ohio too early to call. One of these former Red States has to fall into Obama's column. Right now, it looks like NC or FL (!!) will tip earliest. Gahh. I'm increasingly certain that this will end well, but I was hoping that FL or VA would tip early and we could just do victory laps.

8:17
fivethirtyeight calls New Mexico's Senate seat for Udall (the other Udall). If this comes in at 7 or 8 I'm going to do my "Little Superior Dance" a la the Church Lady. If you guys are lucky, The LATMP will take a film of that and I can post it. (It wouldn't be lucky for you, really...acid won't be able to scrub it from your memory and you'll assuredly have PTSD).

8:23
FINALLY!! Obama just took Ohio. He just flipped a state Bush took in 2004. This is going to take longer than I'd like, but it's looking MUCH MUCH better. The LATMP just heaved a great sigh of relief.

8:33
New Mexico goes to Obama. Another Red State flips. More relief in the Pedant house.

8:46
As expected, James Inhofe (R-Crazy Town) was reelected. Expected, but depressing. The Paternal Pedant was from Oklahoma and I'm resonably sure he's happy we cremated him, so he doesn't have to spin in his grave yet again.

9:13
One restart later and I can post that Iowa went Obama. BTW, Dell laptops suck big hairy donkey balls. I'm going to guess that Indiana may well go Obama, which will please EnviroMom no end.

9:23
fivethirtyeight is showing that Obama is likely to win 353 electoral votes, out of all called, safe, likely and lean states. If both toss-ups, Indiana and Missouri, go to Obama that's another 22 electoral votes, and that puts Obama at 375...a "landslide". It might be enough for us to elect the first black President, but if he also wins by a landslide...

9:31
Half an hour and California, Oregon, and Washington polls close. At that point we should be able to formally call the election for Obama. I'm sure Hawaii and Alaska are used to voting long after the election is called. I guess its the price of either a) living in paradise or b) being fucking nuts enough to live on the set of Northern Exposure.

10:00
Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. Free at last.

10:17
Colorado, Virginia, and Florida have gone Obama. If we get Missouri and Indiana...

10:19
McCain concedes.

'Twas The Night Before...

OK. What the fuck am I going to do with my time, now that the campaign is ending?

Well, likely there will be cabinet pick decisions to look at and pontificate about. There's the ever popular, "What on God's earth will Bush do in the final three months to screw the country up further?" (Hint: "Executive Orders"...it's gonna be Christmas in...um...well...December...for every business group and right wing anti-science group).

But we just got a look at final polls by way of fivethirtyeight.com. It's coming down to Obama +7, and McCain has to run the fucking table just to have a longshot. They're calling it at 98.1% chance of Obama victory now. On the all important Electoral Outlook:

Far more important, of course, is the race for 270 electors. It appears almost certain that Obama will capture all of the states won by John Kerry in 2008. Pennsylvania, while certainly having tightened somewhat over the course of the past two weeks, appears to be holding at a margin of about +8 for Obama, with very few remaining undecideds. Obama also appears almost certain to capture Iowa and New Mexico, which were won by Al Gore in 2000. Collectively, these states total 264 electoral votes, leaving Obama
just 5 votes shy of a tie and 6 of a win.

Obama has any number of states to collect those 5 or 6 votes. In inverse order of difficulty, these include Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana. Obama is the signficant favorite in several of these states; winning any one of them may be fairly difficult for John McCain, but winning all of them at once, as John McCain probably must do, is nearly impossible

So what to do?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Last week I found a DELIGHTFUL site called tvtropes.org. The name is a little disingenuous, as it also covers written fiction, comic books, movies and so on.

Anvilicious? Didn't know it. Don't know what I'd do without it now.

Dropped a Bridge on Him? Marvel claims to do it all the time, only to be followed with bringing the character Back From the Dead.

You can spend HOURS on this site.

As for the election? I plan to blog while watching the results tomorrow. Check in for updates. Or to send nasty-grams in the comments.