I'm watching CNN, and occasionally listening to CNN, while monitoring twitter and finding good web pages. So far, I'll contribute one thing: I like the HuffPo House page quite a bit. Easy to use, well-organized for seeing trends.
Beyond that, I'll be tweeting for a while. I'll be posting something to PP later, and probably write at least something here before the end of the night. But feel free to use this as an open thread.
(Oh, and if you haven't told your voting story yet, please do! I don't know about the rest of you, but I found the various stories, at those which were posted by late in the afternoon, lots of fun. I can't promise I'll read the rest tonight, but I'll definitely get to them at some point...)
For what has to be the first time in my life, I voted a straight ticket. Democratic. If Obama wins, I will have voted for the winner in four presidential campaigns (but only two winning presidential candidates) and the losers in 6 others...in 1976, I voted for Barry Commoner, so I don't count that one as voting for a winner or a loser, but rather as a "pox on both your houses" vote. Beyond that, we had three (non-partican) school board elections--two were not contested races--on the ballot and thre judicial "confirm in office" votes.
ReplyDeleteI don't vote in non-contested races. And I don't vote on judicial confirmation things (I actually don't believe judges should be elected, but in Indiana, electing judges does mean *some* of them are not Republicans). So I made two marks on my optically-scanned ballot and was done.
From walking into the polling place to walking out was less than 10 minutes. I did see a number of my neighbors there, both voting and working.
Now I can just hope the election turns out well (for my meaning of "well"). I especially hope that Obama wins and that Richard Mourdock loses (I live in Indiana), although I am unenthusiastic about Joe Donnelly.
If you're reading this around 11:00 PM EST, I highly recommend the Fox News coverage for the rest of the evening. At this writing its 189-173 Romney, with the five "easy" Obama western states (CA, NV, OR, WA, HI) bringing Obama to 257. Colorado and Iowa get Obama to 272.
ReplyDeleteTo Fox News, though, this is incredibly suspenseful because Florida is close! Its so close! Man.
One other thing: Obama's victory speech tonight was extraordinary, you can read a million better analyses than this one, but I wanted to call out the subtle, incredibly gracious touch of praising not just Mitt Romney's public service, but going one step further to note that his opponent is the son of George and Lenore (first names duly noted), such that Mitt Romney has status within a family to be honored for its service.
ReplyDeleteFor a man whose autobiography, Dreams From My Father, is obviously just guesses, that unusual touch seemed to show a surprising grasp of Why Family Matters from a person whose own experience was obviously pretty shaky.
Bring on the socialist internationalist utopia. I think I'm still gonna be a fan of Obama.