5pm: We are LIVE from Rockefeller Center in New York, Grant Park in Chicago, the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, AZ, and scenic Oak Square in Brighton. MSNBC has assembled an all-star cast of talking heads for what might turn out to be one of the most historic nights in the history of this nation. David Gregory, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Steve Sanders, Keith Olbermann, Eugene Robinson, Joe Scarborough, Nomar Garciaparra, Pat Buchanan, Chuck Todd, Norah O’Donnell, the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Lester Holt. I’m joined as always by Charlie the dog.
And…we’re off!
5:02: Chris Matthews makes the point that in this time of war without end what the American people want is hope. Rachel Maddow steals one of my lines, arguing that America not only needs an end to the era of George Bush but also “a period at the end of the sentence.”
Keith Olbermann brings the historical context. The first African slaves arrived at the Jamestown colony in 1619—and now an African-American man is on the verge of winning the presidency. (I regularly hear from Virginians at my job who want to argue about things like who really held the first Thanksgiving and where did America really start. Well, Virginia, you can have that one.)
5:17: Fun Fact: When I set up to blog from the living room I usually forego the couches and sit Indian-style on the floor. I feel more grounded that way, more wired in to what is happening. Yes, I do realize that makes no sense.
5:18: I think I would be even more wired in if I was in Grant Park. My dear god that is a lot of people.
5:24: When is it no longer too early to start drinking? Stay tuned!
5:37: Our first batch of exit polls! If we learned only one thing from the primary season it is that these are absolutely useless (I’m looking at you New Hampshire!) but we’ll play along anyway.
What is the most important issue to you?
62% say it is the economy, 10% Iraq, 9% healthcare and 9% terrorism. Interesting.
71% say they are worried about another terrorist attack—the same as in 2004. Um, ok, who the FUCK are the 29% who aren’t worried about another terrorist attack? Seriously? No worries? Are these people we should be allowing to vote? It makes you wonder.
5:44: Chuck Todd checks in with two fascinating lists. The first is the top ten states by number of college graduates. The second is the states with the fewest number of senior citizens. Only two states pop up on both lists: Virginia and Colorado. Wow. Say what you will about the black population of the Old Dominion, but Obama’s race is not the only reason many of these states are suddenly in play this time around.
5:55: I’m pacing the living room and warning Charlie to conserve his energy for what I expect to be a long night. He briefly looks up at me before going back to sleep on the couch. He’ll be fine.
6pm: Polls in eastern portions of Indiana and Kentucky have closed, but it will be another hour before they close statewide and we have the possibility of projections. Indiana will be close and we won’t know who wins there for hours, but Kentucky should be a quick call and win for McCain.
6:05: Chris Matthews fires off a passionate defense of American democracy—the turnout, the lines, the ratings, America is engaged in this election in ways we haven’t seen before. He’s right. Shame on anyone who didn’t cast a ballot yesterday. You have no right to complain for the next four years.
6:11: It is still too early to start drinking. But, as always, if Terry McAuliffe makes an appearance then all bets are off.
6:15: The gaggle of pundits engages in yet another discussion of race, the impact it has had on this race, and the historic moment we are possibly about to witness. I’ve made this point before, but the only reason Barack Obama is this close to victory is because he refused to make race the central theme of his campaign. He rose above it and looked all the better for it. Playing up race would have been a losing strategy. Hillary Clinton’s incessant waving of the bloody feminist shirt didn’t help her in the end. Had Obama chosen to wave the bloody shirt of the civil rights movement then this contest would be much different. Whether you like Obama or not, you have to admit that his has been a campaign unlike any we have seen before. He truly transcended identity politics, and every minority group in this country is better off because of it.
Yes we can. Yes YOU can.
6:26: Chris Matthews wants to know what kind of deals Obama cut with Ed Rendell to bring him into the fold. Word is that Pennsylvania is looking very blue this evening but I remain skeptical. I do, however, think Ed Rendell does deserve a position in any new Obama administration, perhaps as the new ambassador to Crapistan.
6:30: There are many great electoral maps online tonight—FiveThirtyEight and Politico, to name two—but I can’t imagine any of them will be as iconic as the white board Tim Russert used so effectively eight years ago. As great as this night may turn out to be, it would be better if Tim Russert was still with us.
6:35: The new ambassador to Crapistan appears for an interview…and begins by congratulating John McCain and Sarah Palin for the great campaign they waged in Pennsylvania. Is this guy for real? Even Hillary has shown more class these last few months. Rendell reports that Obama has solid leads in eastern locations but the western part of the state may be tough. Of course it will, Ed. These people elected Rick Santorum. In Pennsylvania, more so than in any other blue state, this election has been about the color of Obama’s skin. Just vote for the Republican and get it over with already.
6:54: The beautiful and talented Norah O’Donnell reports an anonymous GOP insider is admitting that North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole is likely to lose her seat tonight. If North Carolina is turning blue, McCain is in trouble.
7pm: Time for our first batch of results! The polls have finally closed in Indiana and Kentucky, as well as in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. John McCain is the winner in Kentucky while the hippies of Vermont hand Barack Obama his first electoral votes. Indiana, one of our prime battleground states this evening, is too close to call. Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia (another major battleground state) are all “too early to call.”
OK, what does the phrase “too early to call” even mean? We have gone through an entire primary season and now a general election and still I do not know. Am I alone in this? If someone out there knows please clue me in.
7:13: If too early to call means you think you know but can’t announce because there is not enough information, and too close to call means that the information you have indicates the race is, um, too close to call, then you have to like what we are hearing about Virginia. I know what the polls all said, but as a lifelong Red Sox fan I’ve learned that nothing is won until it as actually won. I’m not buying any results from contested states until we have a large percentage of the vote actually in.
7:18: My buddy Siekman checks in to report Wolf Blitzer is talking to a hologram on CNN. The most shocking part is that he isn’t even hallucinating. CNN just raised the bar on election wackiness. And with that…
7:20: This is the moment when it is OK to start drinking. Thanks Wolf. This one is for you.
7:27: My boy Billy calls with a question: Do talking heads color coordinate their ties based on their political leanings? Do liberals wear blue, conservatives red, etc.? He has apparently been channel surfing for the last half hour and the evidence is mounting that they in fact do. I’ve been looking at Rachel Maddow with a bright red shirt on under her jacket all night, so I remain unconvinced. I leave it to you to make up your own mind.
7:30: More poll closings to report and the news is interesting. North Carolina is too close to call, but Ohio and West Virginia are both too early. Yes, West freakin’ Virginia is too early to call. I would have thought that state could have been called for the Republicans in 2007 and it wouldn’t have been too early.
7:34: OK, just to reiterate: I HATE too early to call. I just don’t know how to take it since I don’t know what it means. Is there no information? Some information? Questionable information? Does it mean anything that West Virginia hasn’t yet been called? I wish I knew.
7:40: Alright, I’m thinking “too early to call” simply means what saying nothing about a state used to mean. “The polls are closed in any state USA; we’ll let you know when the results are in.” Do we really need a confusing designation for that? I wish David Brinkley was still alive. He wouldn’t have put up with this shit.
7:46: John McCain is the winner in South Carolina. This is not a surprise to anyone who has ever studied a little something I like to call The Civil War.
7:48: General Stonewall Jackson checks in to remind me that in South Carolina it is known as the War of Northern Aggression, and that the South will rise again. God help us all.
7:56: I am ready for 8pm to get here. There are a slew of states closing and many of them should be called right away. This election is about to begin taking shape.
8pm: John McCain wins in Tennessee and Oklahoma, neither of which is a surprise. Barack Obama is the winner in Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Washington, DC, and…
HOLY FUCKING SHIT PENNSYLVANIA! Pennsylvania and her 21 electoral votes are in Obama’s column right at 8pm. WOW! I cannot tell you how stunned I am at this moment. But what is right is right—let me publically apologize, right now, to the good people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You have come through in a way I never would have imagined.
Florida and Missouri are too close to call, while Alabama and Mississippi are too early.
8:05: Our current total is 103 electoral votes for Barack Obama and 34 for John McCain.
Chris Matthews announces that McCain’s strategy has crashed and burned. He needed Pennsylvania and New Hampshire and he has neither. Joe Scarborough retorts that the GOP has not yet lost a single red state, so it is premature to say the strategy has “crashed and burned.” But it did just get a lot harder for McCain to win.
8:14: A quick search on the internet reveals the Associated Press has not yet called Pennsylvania or New Hampshire. Neither has CNN. What is MSNBC doing? I figured it would be Fox that would be pulling this shit.
8:19: No one has Pennsylvania or New Hampshire called yet. I may need to switch over to CNN. This is bullshit.
8:21: Deep Breaths. I really cannot take another Wolf Blitzer hologram fantasy so I’ll stick it out.
8:25: Why is uniformity in the calling of states important? Because if this election is close then the perception of who won what state will be huge. More than that, if Obama does win then the moment he clinches 270 will be historic…but if there are different vote totals then that moment may happen at different times on different networks. There will be no single moment to point to.
Also, I just apologized to Pennsylvania and will be bullshit if that was all for nothing.
8:30: The polls close in Arkansas but are too close to call. Alabama, meanwhile, has elected John McCain.
8:35: Georgia has also gone to McCain. (FYI: These are all MSNBC’s numbers. I’m hoping and praying all will work out in the end.)
8:38: The numbers coming in from Virginia are no longer encouraging. Obama is down by more than a hundred thousand votes. Granted, I don’t know which regions have come in and which haven’t, but I am at this moment officially worried.
8:53: The AP finally calls Pennsylvania for the Democrats. Whew. Almost an hour after MSNBC, but better late than never.
9pm: John McCain is the winner in Kansas, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Barack Obama has taken New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island. Texas, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Nebraska, and South Dakota are all too close.
Meanwhile in Arizona, home state of John McCain, the race is too close to call. Wow.
9:11: McCain wins in Arkansas. Our new total is Obama 175, McCain 76.
9:22: OHIO! Barack Obama has won the state of Ohio! Pennsylvania right off the bat was a shock, but Ohio being called inside of two hours after the polls closed there shows where this race is headed. This just might be the dagger that kills the McCain campaign. Ohio was the state that gave George W. Bush his undeserved second term. Without those 20 electoral votes it is hard to imagine a scenario in which McCain can reach 270.
(Can this really be happening?)
9:30: Obama wins New Mexico. 200-85
9:38: McCain finally wins West Virginia. 200-90
9:55: McCain wins Texas. 200-124
Texas is a huge state and a 34 vote pickup changes the way these totals look on paper, but Texas is one of the reddest states in this country and was never in any doubt. There are still votes out there for McCain, but there just aren’t enough to put him over the top.
10pm: Obama wins Iowa, McCain takes Utah. 207-129
10:09: Mississippi goes to McCain. 207-135
10:18: The scene in Grant Park is simply amazing. There are estimates of possibly more than a million people in and around the park tonight and from these live look-ins I'm getting the sense that those estimates might be light. With every moment that passes the sense that something monumental is about to happen grows.
10:24: 11pm might be the moment. Quick calls in California, Oregon, and Washington will put Obama over the top and we will have our next President of the United States.
(Is this really about to happen?)
10:37: John McCain wins South Dakota. 207-138
That Arizona is still too close to call has to hurt McCain. I can’t say I’m happy to see that…but if Mitt Romney were the nominee and Massachusetts was still in play then I would be dancing in the streets. Or at least smiling while I sat on the couch. One of the two.
10:45: Chuck Todd: “If Tim Russert was writing on the white board tonight it would read Bush-Bush-Bush.” This election is a referendum not only on the Republican Party as a whole but also on our current President. That he is not the least popular man in America is true only because Vice President Cheney holds that distinction.
10:52: McCain picked up another four electoral votes at some point that I missed. 207-142.
10:55: The red state/blue state map that we have grown so accustomed to seeing these last eight years is going to look much, much different come tomorrow morning.
(Oh my god…is this really about to happen?)
11pm: The western states come in for Barack Obama and he becomes our President-elect. This is a moment in time of which you cannot say enough—this is history, a moment many Americans never believed they would live to see. We are all lucky to have been alive to see this.
Here’s to Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., the 44th President of the United States. You were the best choice. All of America should be proud of that. All of us. There is something beautiful about this man being selected to lead us all. A black son of a single mother with an exotic name is about to become leader of the free world—and the American voter is the reason why.
11:20: John McCain concedes in the classiest way imaginable. He not only congratulates Obama but vows to support him in any way he can—and the way he delivers the speech makes me want to believe him. I’m not sure I do…but I want to.
Sarah Palin looks uncomfortable and for good reason. This may very well be the last night she will ever spend on the national stage. Talk of Palin in 2012 is nonsense. She was electoral poison to this ticket. She will be no better in four years.
11:29: There is a party outside the White House. My buddy Josh calls to report the same from the Roxbury section of Boston.
11:36: Virginia, Colorado, Florida, and Nevada, each one a so-called “swing state”, have all gone to Obama.
11:45: David Gregory lets us know that President-Elect Obama’s motorcade is now enroute to Grant Park. This is the first mention I’ve heard of the title Obama will carry until Inauguration Day, January 20th 2009.
11:57: The next President of the United States appears onstage in Grant Park with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha. This is our new First Family. In my lifetime. In my grandmother’s lifetime. This is equality.
I’m signing off to enjoy every minute of this speech. Here is a link for anyone who might have missed it.
Yes we can?
YES WE DID!
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