Election day 2008

[ChuckF]

Since Dixville Notch has voted (internets say Obama carried it 15-6), I declare 's election day thread open for bidness.

[Kael]

I predict the outcome will largely be due to the number of votes cast. [/Monty Python]

[Caligulette]

Originally Posted by Kael

I predict the outcome will largely be due to the number of votes cast. [/Monty Python]

You wish.

[fragment]

I'd only just heard of this Dixville Notch and its custom of midnight voting. Y'all 'merkins are quaint.

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by fragment

I'd only just heard of this Dixville Notch and its custom of midnight voting. Y'all 'merkins are quaint.

Yes, Penizburg Ditch tried voting at 11:59 PM on Mondays but you know how America is a stickler for the rules. We must give time for the farmers to ride their buckboards into town to vote, and you sure as heck can't start on the Sabbath. Plus it takes a while to attach an onion to your belt, as was the custom of the time.

[Deadlokd]

This is it? The voting has started? The official election day has begun?

[erimir]

Real voting (i.e. voting of more than a few dozen people) doesn't start for hours.

And it won't be until 7pm that the polls close, and thus some time after that that we begin to get results.

[Caligulette]

Hey now! We've been voting for weeks in Oregon. By the dozens and scads, yet!

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites

Yes, Penizburg Ditch tried voting at 11:59 PM on Mondays but you know how America is a stickler for the rules. We must give time for the farmers to ride their buckboards into town to vote, and you sure as heck can't start on the Sabbath. Plus it takes a while to attach an onion to your belt, as was the custom of the time.

McCain will win Hoarycunt Gulch, mark my words.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Caligulette

Hey now! We've been voting for weeks in Oregon. By the dozens and scads, yet!

Well yeah.

I mean, I already voted too. And we did early voting here for two weeks.

But I meant as far as Election Day... when the large majority of votes will be cast.

[Deadlokd]

Wooooooooooooooooo! (call me Sue, will you )

The two year campaign is nearly over.

[erimir]

Will the entire world celebrate if America elects Obama? lol

I'm alternating between anxiety and anticipation for the results.

And between pessimism (Obama's not that liberal, he can't deliver on his promises, etc.) and optimism (our first black president, an end to our long national nightmare, perhaps a revitalization of liberal politics in America, etc.)

If Obama somehow loses, I'll probably just cry. Of course, there's no guarantee that I won't get teary-eyed if he wins, for the whole first black president thing, combined with the end of the Bush era, and just the happy end to this never-ending election season.

[MonCapitan2002]

I expect McCain will be the next president. Why do I think this? Simple. The Republiscum will find some way to steal this election. So what if they can't be Obama fair and square? They'll just find a way to defraud the American people so they can have their guy become the president.

[Petra]

I hope voters don't get complacent and just assume Obama will win with or without them; and so don't make the effort to vote, thus snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Overall, though, I'm just looking forward to the end of the Bush era/error. It's been a long 8 years.

[Deadlokd]

Yes erimir, we will. It'll be the world's biggest party.

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by erimir

Will the entire world celebrate if America elects Obama? lol

I'm alternating between anxiety and anticipation for the results.

And between pessimism (Obama's not that liberal, he can't deliver on his promises, etc.) and optimism (our first black president, an end to our long national nightmare, perhaps a revitalization of liberal politics in America, etc.)

If Obama somehow loses, I'll probably just cry. Of course, there's no guarantee that I won't get teary-eyed if he wins, for the whole first black president thing, combined with the end of the Bush era, and just the happy end to this never-ending election season.

Here's a crucial difference between the two on foreign policy:

They all seem determined to press forward with the democracy offensive of the discredited Bush administration. Naturally they intend to make a better job of it, having noticed that under Bush the record thus far consists exclusively of failures.

Since the candidates currently seem agreed on this policy, the final question is not who would do it better, but which of them would be quickest to realize that it is impossible. Intelligence isn’t everything; but Obama is seriously smart and seems to have common sense as well.

William PFAFF-Obama & McCain: Economics & Foreign Policy - Columns - News

[Watser?]

The NYT says some networks might call it at 8 EST:

A senior vice president of CBS News, Paul Friedman, said the prospects for Barack Obama or John McCain meeting the minimum threshold of electoral votes could be clear as soon as 8 p.m. — before polls in even New York and Rhode Island close, let alone those in Texas and California. At such a moment, determined from a combination of polling data and samples of actual votes, the network could share its preliminary projection with viewers, Mr. Friedman said.

Networks May Call Race Before Voting Is Complete - NYTimes.com

Giving us furriners the chance to still get some sleep.

[biochemgirl]

Polls here open in an hour and a half and are open until 9 p.m. Last time I just voted by absentee ballot but I gotta say I feel a little more a part of the process by voting today. And my work will grant us from a half hour to an hour off for voting.

[Kyuss Apollo]

I'm walking down to the poll in a couple of minutes. Voting starts up here at 7 AM, I plan to already be standing in the line when it opens.

HEY! There's no "vote" smilie! Closest thing we got is

[Stormlight]

Go chase the small-minded bigots out of the White House!

[vremya]

Yay - voting day!

I'm SO looking forward to the end of the Bush regime.

[Shelli]

[Shelli]

[Watser?]

There is the post icon thingie up there.

Or to the left for some

That almost counts as a smilie and it's voting.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Damn! Forgot about the post icon...

It was a great morning walk down the poll to cast my vote--sun's coming up, a little misty, temps in the high 40's. 17 minute wait in line, voter # 46 at my polling place. Easy wait, though two years ago the wait was more like three minutes. Lines always longer for the Presidential elections than the Congressional ones so I brought a book and my iPod just in case. Later I know it's going to be bad--hopefully Mrs. KA will wake up soon and get down there, but she warned me last night not to wake her up for this if the baby was still sleeping...

The one thing that irks me about RI politics is the level of apathy at the state-level. Here the dems have had a stranglehold on the legislature since the 1930's, and the General Assembly is so corrupt and moribund its why RI's gov't is $450 million in the red and the economy is the worst in the US.

Michigan is even doing better than us...

Yet some of these bozos get a free pass--no opposition. So for the unopposed candidates I wrote in Henry Rollins and Frank Zappa, and for my pro-life US rep I wrote in the far more enlightened Fred Flintstone. Fuck those fuckers, they ain't getting me vote even though they're going to win anyway.

Most of the people in line were older than I...most of the cellphone effect crowd is likely sleeping in. And for some reason I was the only one wearing their "Raptor Jesus Went Extinct For Your Sins" t-shirt, though a couple of people were wearing Obama '08 stickers.

Ah, one the kids is up now, and I hear the baby stirring. I'm going to start cooking us a hearty bacon sausage and eggs breakfast and enjoy the rest of this day.