Congratulations are in order...

...for Master Johnny, who got married on Saturday. I was not able to attend, sadly. But I wish him and his wife a happy marriage!

Ted Turner

Ted Turner should have run for president. Check him out on Lou Dobbs. He's so direct and cutting, it makes me feel all nice and warm inside.

Eh

Sorry for my absence during such an historic election. I've been deathly ill and politics has only made it worse.

So, I guess the meaning of the word "change" will likely now be changed to "status quo." We shall see.

Regardless, I went into the polling place with my Nader pin on. Voted for an Independent, 2 Libertarians and a Democrat. One of the Democrats running for attorney or auditor general actually wanted to make it illegal to join a gang, which of course I thought was a wonderful idea since I don't much like Boy Scouts and think they should all be locked up. Anyway, though I'm no L/libertarian, they seemed to be the only candidates other than Nader who actually had anything real to say. How surprising!

Check out http://november5.org/. Some former Nader supporters have created it to try to hold Congress accountable. Maybe you'll agree with their issues, maybe not, but it's worth checking out.

Worst Commentary Award

I think I passed out more awards last time, but this is all I've got energy for this year.

My Worst Commentary Award goes to the CBC, who I saw using a live Twitter feed, rather than statistics, to point out that some Yanks aren't happy with Obama. My hat off to our neighbors from the north. I thought it was only our country.

I'm going to be retiring the Hype '08 tag, with a prayer that we get until at least February before I need to post something labeled Hype 2012.

Most Boring Election For President...

...in sixteen years.

No surprises. No big fights. No... anything other than what we've gotten endlessly for months.

I would prefer to have Bob Barr as President. He's got all the charm of Cheney and all the balls of Biden, but in a welcome sort of way that uses fewer words to say more.

I don't have much hope of him or anyone like him becoming President for a very long time.

Too many people play petty party puppet politics. I've gotten crap from all sorts of McCain people for my supporting a candidate who can't win, ironically mostly from people whose ideas match more with Barr than McCain. Sadly, the abortion and gay marriage vote can't handle a Libertarian, no matter how much else they have in common. On top of that, the more deeply thoughtful conservative* people I know seem to use their brains every four years only to rationalize why they should vote for some lesser evil who any outsider looking in would never think they would support.

Unless someone can show me otherwise, I will not believe that I happen to know all 500 people who vote for Republicans even with someone like Barr around, or for that matter all 500 people who vote for Democrats with candidates like Nader out there. Two-party politics is a self fulfilling prophecy. It only remains because almost everyone plays as if it must be the way we do things. And unfortunately it pays off the winning group with welfare in the pockets as a distraction or hints of theocracy to make them feel holy.

I'm with Thomas Jefferson who in remarking on instability being a difference between democracy and oppression wrote--

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them.

Unfortunately, when it's the people screwing themselves, the people provide no good way out. Fat chance any Republican I know will wake up because I voted for Barr. They'll only listen if everyone like Barr changes radically and becomes part of the problem.

[* As they call themselves. I find no meaning in that word.]

President-elect Obama

They've called it for Obama!

In other news, they say that Sarah Palin won't be speaking at McCain's concession speech.

In his concession speech, McCain referred to "our faith" -- his and Obama's. About time.

Speaking of Good Commentary

Steve Forbes. Remember him? He's on with John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. It's absolutely adorable.

Stephen Colbert is scoring zero on the dead animal jokes. He commented that the last dogfight as big as this presidential election was in Michael Vick's basement.

georgia blues

Something doesn't smell right in Georgia. Right now the NY Times count is 1,700,000 votes cast for President, with 63% reporting. But early voting totals I saw indicated that 2 million people had voted early. I know there are obviously more votes to be counted but ...

Barred

Our county's results are coming as well, and without our precinct I already know that I'm not the only person to vote for Bob Barr.

local results coming in

2108 EST They've started to post the local results; a few more minutes until we can see what won. Looks like I'm going to have to drill down to precinct level to feel good about the Obama turnout, though.

2140 EST The ballot initiative to reduce the size of Knox County commission (from 19 to 11 members) and force adoption of an anti-nepotism policy looks like it will pass. Early voting built a 9,000-vote majority in support of the measure; but election-day turnout has gone the other way. Interestingly enough, the election-day voters have been slightly more supportive of B.O. than the early crowd (43% vs. 37.5%).

2223 EST The Great Reduction of 2008 has passed! Barely! Wow. By 3000 votes. Maybe we can finally move forward on combining County and City government--so we don't have to pay for a Police Dept AND Sheriffs Dept, for City Fire AND County Fire, City Property Tax AND County Property Tax, etc... Maybe the Library could get some funding if it weren't funded by the County but used mostly by people living within the City.

voting

What type of voting equipment did you get to use? In TN, we have the easily-hacked electronic touchscreens.

Sununews?

Will John Sununu be voted out of office? He's like the smartest person in our government!

Nate Weighs In

I voted today. What fun! It was like the SAT except that the questions mattered more and my answers mattered less.

What am I looking for tonight?

1) How many people in PA voted for Ron Paul?

2) Am I the only person in my county who voted for Bob Barr?

3) Will Charlie Dent stay in PA15?

4) Who's going to file lawsuits about what?

5) I need to give out the Worst Commentary Award. (Fox News is excluded, and MSNBC is excluded if the anchors yell at each other without getting physical.)

6) Will Sarah Palin insult my identity again?

7) Ted Stevens.

And much, much more.

PA, already?

Wow, NBC just called Pennsylvania for Obama!

Will Brian Williams have to eat his shorts?

turnout is steep!

Local turnout is heavy this year; there are a number of county charter amendments on the ballot to (hopefully) clean up county government in addition to Barack and Sarah. We had 2 weeks of early voting in October, before the "real event" today.

125,270 people voted EARLY in Knox County for this election. The Census Population estimate (2006) is 411, 967 persons, of whom 320,922 are over 18 and therefore potential voters. That means (checking my calculator): 39% of all possible voters, not just registered voters, have voted early. Wow.

P.S. I'm bummed to not be at the Obama party in Chicago. I love Grant Park.

stories of the night

I'm here blogging from TN alongside my colleague A.C. Power this election night. We'll be following the coverage on NBC for the most part, with jaunts over to PBS from time to time. I'm jealous of those of you who can watch the Comedy Central coverage between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert--that should be awesome.

Oh, and we're unabashedly rooting for Obama. Fingers crossed!

Besides the overall result of the Presidential election, here's what I'm interested in learning this evening.

1) Will Georgia be in play? Early voter turnout was nearly 2 million. The 2004 election saw a total of 3.3 million voter in Georgia. That leads to my second:

2) How does early voting affect the turnout?

3) The Senate battle: will the Democrats reach 60? 59?

4) Will the polls be accurate? Could this state (TN) be closer than McCain +15? After all, it was just 2 years ago that Harold Ford, Jr. narrowly lost an election to the US Senate.

NBC's starting to call the easy ones: KY and VT. Here we go!

Useful Tools

Poll closing times

MSNBC election retuns

New York Times Politics Section

PA election returns (for the locals)

Let It Begin

Early reported results have Barack Obama winning the election.

Dixville Notch, NH,

Obama/Biden: 16
McCain/Palin: 5
Nader/Gonzalez: 0
Phillies/Bennett: 0
Barr/Root: 0

Hart's Location, NH,

Obama/Biden: 17
McCain/Palin: 10
Nader/Gonzalez: 0
Phillies/Bennett: 0
Barr/Root: 0
Paul(w-i): 2

Like I care. The freaky party puppet judges up there decided that there would be two Libertarians on the ballot.

I'll be going to a crack of dawn seminar, then to vote, and then to the dentist, and then to work for whatever is left of the day. After dinner I will be back here.