Get comfortable, folks, the nation's direction for the near future will be decided tonight, and we have a lot of ground to cover.
Update: As of 11:15 p.m. eastern, President Obama has been declared the winner in Ohio, which pushes him over the 270 electoral-vote threshold. Obama has been re-elected to a second term.
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I've been thinking for years about this special time in elections between when the polls start to close and toward the end of the night. It's a unique reality, sort of dangling in anticipation and possibilities.
It's especially that way for you TV talkers.
And I think I've finally come up with a proper analogy!
It's like watching people get drunk, in reverse.
The people on the screen start out vagues and expansive.
And then they have to extemporize, based on wildly partial data. This is when you hear sentences you don't hear other times like, "John Edwards appears to be ahead." (Or, more recently, Ron Paul.)
And as the night wears on, everybody gets more precise and specific. The new reality starts settling in.
(see also: Klatchian coffee)
I don't know why Rachel had Nate Silver, because if everyone understood his data, it would kill the ratings. If everyone does their job, then the die was cast a week ago, and all this talk about this being a tossup is nonsense. Still, the spectacle is wonderful, I really find the MSNBC hosts and commentators endearing even that guy Schmidt who is full of crap about his policies but I share a lot of values with and think has a lot of integrity.
So I have my multiple packs of popcorn and my favorite bottle of rye. It will be a lot of fun.
To people standing in line to vote; Every state has its own voting laws. Washington state mails each registered voter a ballot weeks before an election. Then we mail the ballots back or drop them off in person. At least we know WEEKS in advance that we have a vote.
Write, call or email your STATE legislators and invite them to the 20th century if not the 21st.
LOL Just John , chuck todd is talking saner and saner as we speak
Are you sure because I know I am a lot less coherant than when we started (Hic')
RYAN loses Wisconsin. OBAMA Wins!!! Special shout out to Walker-Its gotta sting.
Yay Elizabeth & Claire!!!! Yay Donnelly! Now let's get Patty Murray as Majority leader and do away with the Senate old boy rules.
Because ritual annihilation of GOP intolerant ideologues is what God intended.
...
Pass the popcorn. I feel like some more hits off the rye in Senatorial celebration but am feeling a little tipsy already....
Not all great news- I can't believe the West race has not been called yet. What a nut. FL voters should be smart enough to help Murphy show him the door.
I gave up rye for Lent ... in 1972. I now drink nothing but Yankee Pukers on election night: Rebel Yell and Sterling Apple Juice
Rebel Yell: http://www.rebelyellwhiskey.com/
Sterling Apple Juice: http://www.freedomsway.org/towns/sterling/sterling.html
Obama wins! Obama wins! Obama wins!
Yeah, but I still say I won't relax until the swearing-in.
This isn't revenge. This is justice.
Robert- I prefer not to pollute good whiskeys like Maker's mark and Rebel yell. Personally I think you have not gone far enough south. Maybe the GOP will learn someday.
Anyway if you like that one, try a Chimayo Cocktail sometime. Excellent on a hot hot day. I like to float a lot of granny smith sliced apples, but folks like hosts who shall go unnamed probably like to doll it up with umbrellas and other froo froo stuff.
Salud!
By the way, my getting-drunk-backwards analogy still stands.
We end with a team winning, and a celebration starting.
If you have multiple channel record, do so for FBN. My guess it is where the moderates reality guys would be and jeez Cavuto is almost sobbing. But they are talking demographics and rethink no so much the storm or blaming nonsense factors.
I personally believe that the best outcome of the election (now that Obama has won) is the new disease we identified and defined.
Romnesia - The partial memory loss arising out of taking so many different positions at once that, at any point in time, you are able to recollect only one of those positions. The position you are able to recollect is purely dependent on the company you are with
I think Schmidt is wrong. They have no concession speech because Romney will do as Nixon did.
Romney simply doesn't feel he has to follow the rules. That is how he started, ran and will end this race.
Romney will say he has a great concession speech prepared, but he won't reveal it to us.
Well, our son tried to vote in PA today and wasn't allowed to vote as his drivers licence did not match his voters registration. (He moved after voting last time). They are not supposed to ask in PA! We are livid. Of course, he is registered Democrat. He told us the girl ahead of him got the same treatment and couldn't vote. Another Democrat. We don't know who to call! The leage of women voters said they should have let him vote.
PA never was like this before, this is an outrage.
they should have at least given him a provisional ballot. That's exactly the kind of situation they are actually intended for.
PA will ask for ID, and they are supposed to provide a provisional ballot.
You do not have to show ID, but, if your son hasn't had a regular voting record, his name will be flagged to produce ID, anyway.
It's screwed up, I know. 1-866-our-vote i think is a number you can call.
www.866ourvote.org
I live in MN. My 30 year old son went to the polling place and they grilled him about where he lived. They shouldn't do that either.
Elle, #2.5
When we lived in FL, my husband was one of the registered Democrats who was purged when Katherine Harris did the poll purge. He couldn't vote, and had his drivers licence and voters card in his hand. He served this country in the Air Force, too, but he couldn't vote in FL in 2000. I have never seen him that angry.
They said he didn't exist. They'd purged him from the records.
Bush won. You know the rest....
Next election maybe we'll need the UN supervisors.
@India leCarre
Why the hell didn't your son sort this out beforehand????
It is NOT HARD!!!!!!!!!!!
India, I'd call the authorities tommorrow.
I hope Romney gives a concession speech because it's the only one he has given this entire election that I'll watch and am looking forward to watching. I'm not counting the convention speech because I feel this is required viewing for anyone serious about the election no matter how painful it is. just as I was about to post this comment Rachel delivers the news that Elizabeth Warren WINS in Massachusetts!!
cheeky chews, Tough to lose, isn't it.
So sorry your vulture Capitalist, draft dodging, greedy, elitist, lying candidate failed. Him and his Ayn Rand worshiping VP, lyin Ryan.
You lose, America wins.
PA shouldn't have asked for his photo ID. That law was prohibited. Plus, they should have given him a provisional ballot. He is very shy, unlike his mother. I'd still be there demanding one.
OH HOW SWEET IT IS!!!!!!!!!!! PUBES ARE DEFEATED!!!!!!! As soon as Pennsylvania went into the blue column, it was OVER for the dead, decaying pubes. Mourdock.....DEFEATED, AKIN.....DEFEATED, George Allen......DEFEATED, Scott Brown......DEFEATED! A good day for the country, a bad day for the greedy, lying, robber baron pig bas#$%^s!!!!!!!
@Cheekychews:
Why didn't he clear up his ID problem beforehand? How about:
Because he shouldn't have had to at all!
I am glad I was wrong about Romney and the concession. Hopefully his call to bipartisanship will be heeded. Boehner earlier in the evening was sounding notes of conciliation, so maybe we will see a complete abandonment of obstructionism, and this is the nadir of TParty veto of principles of comity and governance.
I am sad I was wrong about the Occupy movement. I had optimism to the end that they would flex their muscles, but they were no show.
A quick thought on the generally oh-so-delightful results of this evening's electoral activity: in one respect the MSM seems to be going with a narrative suggesting that "rape"-related issues tanked the campaigns of a couple of Rape-Public-CON Senate candidates. E.g., NBC has posted an article titled "Rape remarks sink two Republican Senate hopefuls", citing the two obvious examples of Akin & Mourdock.
However, I think the issue is both broader and deeper than that would suggest. As the kindly and erudite Dr. Maddow has pointed out on more than one occasion, quite a few Rape-Public-CON Senate candidates in this election cycle had staked out extremist positions on reproductive rights ("War on women"? What "war on women"? Ohhh... you mean that "war on women"... Right.).
I find it of particular interest that, with only a few exceptions (and most of those in the reddest of red states), these extremists LOST at the ballot box. A detailed breakdown, as far as I'm able to sort it out for now (winning candidates highlighted in "bold-face"):
Candidates who favor banning abortion without exception even for rape, incest or the life of the mother (4 winners, 12 losers):
Todd Akin MO
Steve King IA
Joe Walsh IL
Dick Mourdock IN
Ted Cruz TX
Tom Smith PA
John Raese WV
John MacGovern VT
Deb Fischer NB
Josh Mandel OH
Pete Hoekstra MI
Wendy Long NY
Michael Baumgartner WA
Rick Berg ND (not yet called, but trailing by 3,556 with 92% in)
Roger Wicker MS
John Barasso WY
"Pro-life" candidates who refused to specify their positions on exceptions (and were thus, probably, ideologically consistent with the radicals above; 3 losers):
Kevin Wade DE
Daniel Bongino MD
Kurt Bills MN
Candidates willing to allow exceptions to their hoped-for ban on abortion, but only in the case of rape, incest or for the life of the mother (4 winners, 7 losers):
Jeff Flake AZ
Elizabeth Emken CA
Connie Mack FL
Denny Rehberg MT (race not yet "called", but trailing by 14,512 with 62% in)
Dean Heller NV (race not yet "called", but leading by 12,134 with 92% in)
Heather Wilson NM
George Allen VA
Tommy Thompson WI
Charles Summers ME
Bob Corker TN
Orrin Hatch UT
Candidates avowedly "pro-choice" (4 losers):
Linda McMahon CT
Linda Lingle HI
Barry Hinckley RI
Scott Brown MA (pro-choice stance in dispute by pro-choice advocates)
Candidate claiming to be "privately pro-life, publicly pro-choice" (1 loser):
Joe Kyrillos NJ
Obviously a lot of factors influence any given voter's decision about a candidate, and this issue may not have been a principal consideration in some of these races (particularly those who staked out pro-choice positions). But I think an argument may be made that even in those cases, the radicalism/insanity of the other candidates of their party helped to drag their prospects down.
Yay!
Got Enraged and Engaged:
Mooched the Vote 2012!
;-)
Ruh-Roh. McConnell is not reading from the same bipartisan page. Here is his form of congratulation to the President he made it his goal to defeat through obstructionism.
Not exactly humbled. Alters I think used the term dyspeptic, and it fits. This guy is unrepentant and will continue the same strategy of attempting to hold the country hostage to GOP ideology.
Dem Senators- Do you need any more proof of why you MUST remove the sharp objects from the reach of this man? Eliminate the rules that allow McConnell to block Obama's appointments and progressive legislation. Don't make the same mistake in persisting in the delusion that the GOP will honor and keep these rules when they become inconvenient to them.
If you Dem Senators are fool enough to let this man hold a gun to your heads for the next two years with just 44 votes, then you will lose the respect of the volunteers and voters who kept you in power this cycle. We must act now. Look at the Senate seats for 2014. Only one possible upside state in Maine. Lots of downside risks.
If Reid refuses to do it, then elect a majority leader who will. Someone like Patty Murray.
Make McConnell irrelevant.
As for the House? The Democratic party absolutely must not make the same mistake they made and demobilize the Obama organization as they did in 2008. The DCCC and DSCC must actively and aggressively recruit all of these field organizers for the same aggressive microtargetted campaign to deliver a House majority in 2014, and defend the majority in the Senate. The starting gun is fired now, because that is how long it will take to do to some of these GOP incumbents that the OFA did to Romney.
The Democratic party needs to go hyperpartisan and grind these jokers out of office. It won't be easy. The Koch brothers and the plutocracy is not going to roll over and play dead.
This isn't over. We are just getting started.
In the Republican dictionary, 'bipartisanship' means 'Democrats surrender'.
So- is the mandate now another $4T in debt? Even the pundits last night were finaally admitting there aren't enough rich for the proposed tax to make even a decimal point difference when talking abouot Trillions. Obviously, the quickest step will be to let the FICA tax reduction law lapse. Look for that to be quietly scrapped. There's a lot more revenue there than in taxing millionaires.
It means that the adults in the GOP may have realized they need fear Hispanics and women more than the T Party. It means that Boehner will be able to get his caucus to agree to the grand bargain saving $4T.
This is not knuckling under Rusty. It is called governing.
Uhm, not for sure what your position is on taxes. If you're for them, you'll be happy with Obama. It's a foregone conclusion that taxes will go up for anyone over $40,000 a year, or less.
Romney will concede within 4 hours.
or declair himself president for life
He won't concede and if things keep going the way they look to be going, he won' t have to. Sad day for America if this guy is elected.
Don't worry, elle, those are all votes he was expected to get. Watch what happens when all the "too close to call" places start getting called. Right now Obama is ahead in FL!
they just showed romney a head by 300 votes in florida
I'm not very confident of the results of this. Yes, I know the poling says Obama is likely to win, but...so much politically has gone all pear-shaped in recent years that I won't feel optimistic until I can see Obama be sworn in for a second time. I'd ask the Doctor, but I know he'll only start prattling about foreknowledge and fixed points and go all ineffable again.
Well guess i will just sit back grab a scotch or two and see how this will play out.
Good Luck America!!!
one burbon one scotch and one beer...per hour
Sounds like a plan, Pilot. Our son, a Democrat, was turned away from voting today. Here in Pennsylvania. See comment above.
India the DailyKos had all kinds of phone numbers email address and etc... for this kind of stuff.
well so far i have hear turn out is large.
Thanks Dragoon, I needed me some George Thorogood ;-)
Pilot, I'm having an ale.Warren won MASS! Yes!!!
No live Maddow?
Also so Romney is the projected winner in South Carolina even though he is currently being beaten by Obama 79% to like 13% lol. I mean I recognize they say it's going to Romney because it's a red state, but that just looked hilarious on the screen.
*21% I meant instead of 13%. oops
I just looked at it again and it's still wrong...strange
I know! I don't have cable and I was really hoping for MSNBC live coverage online. Brian Williams is a good guy but I want to see Maddow!
Maddow is the best. So intelligent. I really like her.
Dangit!
Get your numbers in sync.
You've projected SC for Romney but the results in show Obama 75%
What am I not getting?
I hate it when you guys do this.
Less than one percent of the votes had been counted when you posted that. See above, my allusion to a moment like this, when we thought John Edwards might win a major Dem primary in 2008.
Yeah, I know..thanks.
I still hate it when they do that.
Yeah, I remember when the Left thought John Edwards was really great. Most of the others saw through him and thought he was scum from the beginning.
Enough seriousness - I've switched to Jon Stewart.
Rachel's still on MSNBC here...
Go, Team Obama!
The Wife, and our two daughters voted this evening here in the MN's 5th district Lake Nokomis section.
There were no lines? we were able walk right into the polling place and were done in 20min. How sweet is that.
My vote number was 1197. We voted DEM all the way!
I say that because we feel, That the GOP\TP Ilk ain't no Damm Good for the American Class! or America.
Obama/Biden 2012 - 2016!
Here in dayton, mn. voted straight dem and when i didn't know the guy, I went for the gal. I was ballot number 49.
Which begs the question: Why don't we have a polling place for every so many people, like 2-3K? I know, there is money involved but "Really?"
Mn, does that mean you predict Biden will be president by the end of the term? I don't wish I'll on Obama, so I hope it is impeachment
Well other sites are calling SC for Romney as well.
guess the totals are from Dem friendly areas and the rest are coming from not so friendly. but hell that still don't mean there's enough to over come.
one scotch down. smiles.
CNN exit polls for Ohio: 51% Obama, 48% the other guy
Out here in California, the anticipation is incredible. We need to win tonight or we might as well just succeed from the Union, or fall off the continent along the earthquake faults and become an independent nation!
Take Oregon and Washington with us and call it the Republic of Sanity.
You have obviously never spent any time north of Humbolt county
you just went thru a arnold schwarzenegger phase , give us a break mr sanity lol
There are people north of Humboldt County?
As to Ahnuld, he was the last. The Republican Party is now illegal in the state.
I wouldn't actually call them..."People"
Let me put it this way...somewhere one of Alabama's counties is missing
There are many good people in OR and WA
I know I was talking about the lunatics that live in Del Norte county CA
5:02 PM PT: CNN projects: Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island for Obama. Oklahoma for Romney. No surprises.
Florida incoming poll data. http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/MyElection/President/
Where's Rachel?
She's on MSNBC, Chris Matthews is hollerin' right now, then they'll punch it back to Rachel.
Romney winning in the southern red states. Dumkusitan, I call them.
@India LeCarre
We ain't America without them
Seriously, we'd miss them if they were gone.
Sounds like Sandy has blown away Romney! Bye Woolard! Have fun counting your ill gotten gains!
After over two billion dollars spent on ads Ohio is the big winner if you own a TV radio or newspaper. But a hell of allot more has been spent in the last 4 years on brainwashing with propaganda against Obama. All across the country talk radio has been taken over by the right wing. Even a classic rock FM station changed its format leaving us with only one. I think after the election it will go back to classic rock. Enough brainwashing!
xxooo The Koch brothers will be pi%$ed off tonight!
Yeah isn't it great! And they will be 4 years closer to death! Hee hee hee!
Heidi Heitkamp has the lead over Rick (the ick) Berg! In the ND senate race!
My son just told me that he was forced to cast a provisional ballot in Phoenix Arizona. He had his voter registration card and id. Other voters around him had the same problem. Jan Brewer has made a statement defending the practice.
Considering it's Jan Brewer I have to ask, would you happen to be Hispanic by chance?
Andrew Horning (I) sucking votes away from Donnelly in Indiana :(
Yeah but Donnelly is still beating the wackaloon by about 50,000 votes
Whooot One free range tea part nut sent back to the bunker
Walsh and Brown both lost.
PA goes Obama
MI goes Obama
LOL dam Mitts 0 for 2 on home states.
What about Utah?
Utah went to Romney
...in the least-surprising result of the night.
Good news from FL: Whackjob war criminal Allen West is losing his seat with 40% of the vote in. Good guy Alan Grayson is winning his.
Gotta watch that stuff in the crawl at the bottom of the screen folks.
now WI for Obama
ND SD Neb all Romney...duh dumb farmers.
Really enjoying the MSNBC teamwork and high spirits. We are very pleased that states are allowing people who have been standing in line for hours to get their votes in. Hopefully they will be in by the time the West Coast votes are counted and we can really celebrate!
Warren BEATS Brown! Whoohoo!
and the good Brown won in OH
Minnesota goes for the POTUS! Whew!
One for the faux Indians.
I'm glad Walsh is gone. What an @!$%#.
ELIZABETH WARREN WINS MASSACHUSETTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Way cool!