ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

Do you have difficulty sustaining an election?

This is part ‘election blog’ and part ‘how long can I stay awake blog’. I won’t be publishing it immediately either, on the basis that I don’t imagine people will be coming here to try and find the results of the US Election, and that as I get more tired it will probably make sense to review what I have written at least once before it gets published [update: naah, I'll just publish it before I crash out].

Oh, one more thing: I’m not waiting for the formal results; I’m happy to go off the BBC projections. So there may be corrections later. Right, here goes…

00:29 GMT

McCain 8 — 3 Obama. Kentucky has gone McCain, Vermont Obama. No surprises there; both were strongholds for their respective teams.

00:30

Nachos with cheese. Mmm. That will keep me going for a few more states. I must admit to being amazed by the exit polls — being told what proportion of black, white, male, female, young, old voters are saying they have voted for a particular candidate. I am slightly surprised that there is not an exit poll of ‘people called Joe who are plumbers’.

00:34

Fox and CBS have apparently called West Virginia for McCain. This is — and isn’t a surprise — in 2004, Bush had a 9% lead, but polls had been showing Obama an average of 4% ahead. It would suggest that the polls had been counting Obama too high; let’s see what sort of impact that has if it’s repeated across the US…

However, the BBC man hasn’t picked this up yet, so we’re still 8 — 3

00:41

Come on, count some bloody votes. How many pregnant chads can there be?

00:46

No votes worth noting about. But bloggers get a mention — ‘fascinating intelligence about Indiana’. As it turns out that the intelligence is ‘Obama is doing better than Kerry did in 2004′, but Kerry lost by 21% in 2004, this ain’t really telling us much.

00:49

Robocop has been in Florida, saying Castro wants Obama to win. Well, as Robocop was from Detroit — which has been Democrat for a while, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him supporting Obama. Unless of course he said Robocalls…

00:53

South Carolina has been called as a Republican hold, giving them a 16 — 3 lead at present. That makes it another 254 votes as a minimum before we have a decision. And with 19 declared in the last 34 minutes, I guess we’ll know by … Friday.

00:56

“We go to Pennsylvania, which is the big potato…”. You wot?

Not that they were announcing anything yet, of course… *sigh*

01:00

The news is that Pennsylvania has stayed with the Democrats. And he’s been projected New Hampshire too. Which now puts Obama 28 — 16 ahead.

Illinois and District of Columbia projected for Obama, which gives him 52 — 16.

Massachusetts to Obama; Delaware projected for Obama, giving him 67 — 16

01:04

Maryland to Obama, Tennessee to McCain: Obama leads 77 — 27

Maine and New Jersery for Obama; Oklahoma to McCain. I think I’ve missed at least one, but the current projection is 103 — 34. Allegedly McCain must hold Indiana to have any chance now.

01:10

Electoral Vote is suggesting that with 11% of the vote currently counted in Florida, Obama is showing a 16% lead, which would be handy for him…

It’s still 103 — 34, which means I can take a breath now.

01:12

Apparently, the last time Indiana was Democrat was 1964. But the BBC are playing with their fancy graphics, which still seems to show McCain with a lead of a couple of percentage points.

Come on, surely it’s time to do some fancy graphics where they can make sweeping predictions as to what will happen for all the rest of the states — you know, the Jon Snow stuff “remember, this is just for fun” — so they can colour in the rest of the states.

01:15

“Larry have you got something for us from Elizabeth Dole or er…”

Obviously not: they had just told us two minutes earlier Elizabeth Dole was projected to lose her senate seat. David Dimbleby starts to show the first signs of struggling to sustain an election…

01:24

Still no results from Georgia, which obviously the impatient reporters are suggesting that this therefore means there’s something surprising going on. Well, there has been something surprising going on. Seeing people under 30 actually interested in politics is in itself astonishing.

Electoral Vote — you know, which had pitched Obama 4% up in West Virginia — was showing McCain to have a 3% lead in Georgia. So in order to pick that one up, they would have had to underestimate Obama’s vote there. Incidentally, the BBC still have not called West Virginia.

01:29

Kansas and Nebraska expected soon, apparently. Both places where McCain had a lead of over 15%, so I’d expect those to be Republican. Oh; Alabama has been projected for McCain; Arkansaw for McCain (both places with a comfortable Rep lead); giving Obama a 103 — 49 lead.

01:35

Update from Electoral-Vote; latest Florida count suggests that Obama is still ahead, but only by 6% now after 30% of the vote has been counted. Given that a large proportion of early voters have gone Obama, if they have been counted first, there might still be time for this to switch back to McCain. But I don’t know how the counting thing works, so it might not be that at all…

01:42

No call from the BBC yet, but 2 of the US Networks have now projected Georgia for McCain. People being interviewed in Virginia (including the Republican chap) are suggesting Virginia will go to Obama, which would be a gain for him. On the other hand, Electoral Vote is suggesting that with 34% of the Virginia vote counted, McCain is 13% up. They can’t both be right, surely…

Still no update on the BBC numbers: 103 — 49 to Obama.

01:47

One of the advantages of not really knowing much about US politics means I’m going of “number of electoral college votes”. I don’t have much idea on the “If X wins State Y, he’s likely to win Presidency Z” stuff. Tell you what, I’ll look it up…

Okay, apparently in 2004, Bush won 286 electoral votes, Kerry got 252. This means that for Obama to win, he needs to win all the states Kerry won, plus at least another 18 votes. Virginia, if that went to Obama, would provide 13 of ‘em.

01:53

All the pollsters seem to be suggesting it’s not so much a question of whether Obama will win, but when and by how much. But it’s still 103 — 49.

01:55

“Can you tell us anything about Virginia, Florida and Indiana?”

Indiana is about 1% in favour of McCain, with half of it counted; Florida is about 3% in favour of Obama with 40% of it counted…

“It’s two minutes to nine o’clock, here in… where we are.” Nice one, David.

02:00

So far, if my calculations are correct, we’ve not officially had any gains; we’ve just had Republican and Democrat holds.

Michigan and Minnesota, and Wisconsin projected for Obama; McCain has taken North Dakota. Again, no gains or losses. Although Fox has called Ohio for Obama, so if that follows through with the others, that’s bad news for McCain.

Rhode Island is a Democrat hold.

02:04

Georgia has gone to McCain; looked close at one point but that would have been a surprise for Obama to have lifted that; another Republican hold. Current score 175 — 76 in favour of Obama.

Fox has predicted New Mexico for Obama; would be a gain, but I’ll wait for the BBC; other things Fox has called have not heard anything yet.

02:09

Well, that’s the nachos gone. I’m off for another Diet Coke now.

02:15

Still 175 — 76. Now they’ve been joined by a guy with a green tie, and a guy with a grey moustache and a red stripey tie. Couldn’t care less about who they are. I want coloured graphics, dammit! I want to see things turn red and blue!

02:19

At this point, no-one (according to the BBC) has gained or lost a state since the last election.

Oh, and apparently “Undecided voters haven’t been turned on by Sarah Palin”. Well, that will be a surprise for US News, who asked Will Men Vote for Sarah Palin Only Because She Is Hot?. The answer it seems is “apparently not”.

02:24

First projected gain from the BBC — Obama projected to win Ohio, which means he would only then need to win the rest of the states Kerry won to be president and wouldn’t need any more gains. Current score 195 — 76.

Dear me, you’d think a BBC reporter would know Arkansas is pronounced Arkansaw. Mind you, that’s a sore point for me. I took point in a school quiz aged 17 once, my team reached the final, and then when asked which state Bill Clinton was from, I said Arkansas (-saw). Only to be told that I was wrong, and the other team to get the points by pronouncing it Arkansas (-sas). Mind you, that was 16 years ago, so I shouldn’t really hold grudges — but if I see that quizmaster…

02:29

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like Obama. I’ve never liked Murdoch, but no-one invites me on telly to talk about it. As it goes, I’ve come to quite like both of the US candidates: I might disagree with some policies, but they seem to be nice, friendly, personable people. It’s just Rupert Murdoch and cheating bastard quizmasters I’m not fond of.

02:32

West Virginia and Louisiana for McCain; both Republican holds, taking the score to 195 — 90. Note that California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii should all be comfortable Democrat wins, which would provide another 77 electoral college votes and take Obama past the 270 he needs.

New Mexico has been projected for Obama; that’s the second Democrat gain and would take him to 277 without any other gains. However, the point I was going to make was that those states are on the far west (along with republican Alaska) so it will take a while to hear them.

02:41

In no surprise at all, Texas has been projected as a Republican hold. Latest projected score 200 — 124 in favour of Obama.

02:50

No wonder no-one has called Florida yet. Apparently with 60% of the vote counted, Obama still leads by 3%; I imagine that one is too close to call either way.

Another one that’s close; apparently Virginia is 50%–50% with 77% of the votes counted. I think they might need to count a few more… although one of the pollster people is suggesting that the bits that haven’t been counted yet are in areas that will tend to vote in favour of Obama.

02:59

Four more polls set to close any minute now; all of which were previously Republican.

The first one comes in: Obama projected to gain Iowa; McCain to hold Utah, takes us to 207 — 135.

03:07

Question to Eddie Izzard: “how will the US election affect your line of work?”. Poor Eddie seemed a little thrown by that; partly because he’s not a political satirist, he’s someone who just goes off on one about some random subject (cats purring behind the sofa, for example) and makes it funny.

03:13

*Groan*. Why, is it not possible on election night, for people to take their defeats with good grace? Why can’t someone just congratulate the other campaign, or the opposition, rather than implying that they will ruin the country or have lied to get where they are? I would contrast this with Michael Portillo’s speech after losing a safe conservative seat in the 1997 election. I didn’t like the man, didn’t like his policies, but couldn’t help but admire his dignity in defeat. That’s how you ought to do it.

03:21

Still nothing else called yet: 207 — 135. Need more Diet Coke.

03:27

“Men are leaning towards Obama.” He’s either got magnets in his pockets, or a certain amount of gravitas-ational force. Sorry.

03:31

Nebraska — being one of two states which doesn’t automatically give all of its votes to the outright winner — has given three of its votes to McCain. The other two are still being counted. Previously, these were all Republican, and polls from the November 4th Electoral Vote showed McCain with a lead of around 20%, so it would be astonishing if Obama could pick up any of these.

03:41

South Dakota, with it’s 3 electoral college votes, is to remain Republican. That’s 207 — 141. However, with California and the West Coast to come, an Obama win is inevitable, and it’s surely only a question as to when McCain concedes (presumably immediately after Obama hits the magic 270 mark).

03:55

The only remaining question is “can I stay awake long enough to catch the Florida and Virginia results?”. I’d imagine the California results will be along soon to push Obama past the 270 mark.

04:00

California and Washington to Obama (Democrat holds), which takes him to 273 electoral votes and effectively makes him president-elect. The only question is whether or not he gets to be called Mr. Landslide… (350+ electoral college votes).

04:03

Can’t update my blog; the database connection is down. This is normally down for five minutes or so for backups at around this time. I’ll just have to use notepad for now…

04:04

Virginia now predicted as a win for Obama, which is another Democrat gain (+13); Hawaii a Democrat hold (+4), Idaho projected for McCain (+4), taking the score to 297 — 145

04:06

Yes, yes, I know he’ll be president, but I want to know the final score. Hurry up and count the rest of ‘em.

04:10

Raay! Wordpress is back up.

04:15

Colorado to Obama (+9); another Democrat gain which takes Obama to 306. So now the BBC are interviewing Tracy Chapman. You know, she’s got a fast car, and she was talkin’ ’bout a revolution. I don’t know why we focus on her, mind you…

04:18

John McCain has come to the platform in Arizona to concede. Either he’s actually a ventriloquist’s dummy, or the BBC took a minute or so to get the sound synchronised with the pictures. I think it’s probably just a technical glitch. McCain comes across as dignified in defeat, and cut off the people booing Obama. McCain deserves a lot more respect than some of the bitter-sounding people from his team cropping up earlier on.

At the same time, Florida (+27) has just declared for Obama, taking him to 333, and edging towards landslide territory. McCain was also projected to win something, but I missed whatever it was, but it makes the current score Obama 333 — 155 McCain.

04:24

At this point, the BBC run the headline: “Breaking News; McCain Concedes”. Yeah, I found that out a few minutes ago on er… the BBC.

04:28

Looking at the current numbers on the BBC site, I’d suggest it looks like Indiana might sneak over to Obama, as may Nevada; the rest will probably fall for McCain, which would give us final figures of 349 for Obama and 189 to McCain. Which would see Obama one short of an ‘electoral college landslide’. Well, I guess he would have settled for that at the start of the campaign!

04:37

Nevada has gone for Obama (+5), taking him to 338. He might get past 350, you know– the latest ‘running total’ shows him back in front in North Carolina.

04:49

I’ve just seen an interview with Gore Vidal. That was one of the most bizarre, rambling and only partially coherent things I’ve seen since Kerry Katona was talking to Philip Schofield. Worth watching if it turns up on You Tube.

North Carolina and Indiana are both apparently very close — with Obama ahead by around 20,000 votes out of 3-4 million cast. If — and it’s a big if — he wins both, that would take him to a heft 365 votes in the Electoral College.

04:53

And that, ladies and gents, is it for me. Goodnight one and all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 4:54 am and is filed under Blogging, Politics. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.