ELECTION DAY: Media Whore D'Oeurves



(image via cunyjschool)

"The suspense starts in Indiana. Most polls close at 6 p.m. and others at 7. Indiana is a ruby red state where Mr. Obama has been running closely with Mr. McCain. Be wary of results that do not include Gary, a city with a substantial African-American population. If Mr. Obama wins it, Indiana could be the canary in the coal mine predicting disaster ahead for Mr. McCain." (NYTimes)

"SIGN MCCAIN IS IN HOT WATER. If Obama wins any one of the following states: Ohio (7:30 p.m.), Virginia (7 p.m.), North Carolina (7:30 p.m.) or Florida (8 p.m.). SIGN MCCAIN IS COOKED. If Obama wins two of them. SIGN MCCAIN IS TOTALLY TOAST. He loses Georgia (7 p.m.), where he once enjoyed a 20-plus-point lead. OBAMAPOCALYPSE. Obama is more or less finished if he loses Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida — with the stat wizards at FiveThirtyEight.com giving him only a 9.76 percent chance of victory if he loses the battleground trifecta." (Politico)

"Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has cast her vote for Barack Obama, saying that voters understand that the nation needs 'a serious president for serious times.' Clinton voted Tuesday with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in their hometown of Chappaqua in New York's Westchester County. The senator was asked if she felt sorry that her name was not on the ballot. She replied: 'The personal honor and privilege I had of being a candidate and coming so close is something I'll always be proud of.'" (NYPost)

"At St Brendan’s parish church, on Youngstown Ohio’s West Side, there were signs on Tuesday morning that John McCain’s efforts to woo voters in a traditional Democratic stronghold had not been in vain.'I voted with the experience, with the war vet,' said David Tacsik, a 54-year-old who runs a car dealership on nearby Mahoning Avenue. Mr Tacsik was born and raised on the West Side, a predominantly white area in a city where roughly half the population is black, its ethnic origins signalled by the local Paprika Café and the two Hungarian churches.. Senator McCain visited the Youngstown area four times this year .." (FT)

"Long lines in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill. People yelling OBAMA as they bike/drive by." (DerekTut/Twitter)

"Kenny's Castaways -- a rock dive on Bleecker Street between Thompson and Sullivan --has been a daytime hangout for low-lifes since time immemorial. (Or at least the mid-1970s, when it opened; Bruce Springsteen played his first gig here.) Early this afternoon, Jerry the Methadonian came by to rally the flock. "Is everyone voting? You're all getting out there right?" Everyone grunted in response." (Observer)

"Like a lot of you, I spent last week worrying that northwest Pakistan's most famous spokesmodel might release another demo tape in time for the election, as he did four years ago. But the tape never came. Why wouldn't bin Laden try to influence yet another U.S. election? Surely he prefers McCain to a president named Barack Hussein Obama--much harder to argue that America is anti-Muslim in the latter instance. (And, no, I'm not saying Obama is a Muslim.) Here's the logic I used to reassure myself: Bin Laden is, if nothing else, a pretty canny self-promoter who can read polls (or at least Pollster.com) like the rest of us. Four years ago, Bush appeared to have a slight lead heading into the homestretch. What better way to appear to have influence over an election than to help the guy who's likely to win? Conversely, in the final week or so before today's election, Obama appeared to have a pretty insurmountable lead. Even if a bin Laden tape would have narrowed the margin, it probably wouldn't have made a winner of McCain. In which case it would have exposed bin Laden to be kind of impotent." (TNR)

"In Chesapeake, approximately 1,000 voters stood in line to vote, and some people reported malfunctioning machines. Pollard said paper ballots were brought into one polling place in Henrico County, in suburban Richmond. In Petersburg, the wrong machines were delivered to a polling place. Pollard said reports of optical scanning machines not recording votes were likely the result of the wet weather." (DailyKos)

"One thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed with Obama’s speech against the Iraq War… But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain. Republican President George W. Bush has not been a conservative at all, either in domestic policy or in foreign policy. He invaded Iraq on the basis of abstract theory, the very thing Burke warned against. Bush aimed to turn Iraq into a democracy, 'a beacon of liberty in the Middle East,' as he explained in a radio address in April 2006. I do not recall any 'conservative' publication mentioning those now memorable words 'Sunni,' 'Shia,' or 'Kurds.' Burke would have been appalled at the blindness to history and to social facts that characterized the writing of those so-called conservatives. Obama did understand." (Jeffrey Hart)

"The long nightmare journey is almost over, Frodos. Just throw the Ring into the flaming fires of Mt. Doom & we can all go back to the Shire .." (AlexBlagg/Twitter)

"Democrat Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, has jumped out ahead of Republican Ted Stevens 49.3 percent to 42 percent (including leaners) with 7.1 percent undecided or registering no opinion in a Hays Research Group poll conducted Nov. 2. The margin of error is 4.9 percent." (CQPolitics)

"Here are official election results sites ordered by Eastern time poll closings. Bookmark this post as polls close:

6:00 / 7:00 pm: Indiana
6:00 / 7:00 pm: Kentucky -- because it's first
7:00 pm: Virginia
7:00 pm: Georgia
7:00 / 8:00 pm: Florida
7:30 pm: North Carolina
7:30 pm: Ohio .." (More at: PatrickRuffini)

"If you’ve been following the election on the edge of your seat, but just can’t get enough, it’s definitely time to check out Scranton: The Election City! Stop in, smell the fear on the podium, and judge for yourself if Scranton lives up to its reputation." (BlogRing)

"There are scattered reports of voting problems across the country, and in Virginia, a watchdog group is already urging that polling places be kept open two hours. 'Dozens of callers in Virginia are reporting serious polling place problems, including broken machines, long lines, and a lack of parking. Some polling places are not even open yet,' reports the Election Protection Coalition. The Associated Press reports that several counties have had problems with paper jams and balky touch-screen devices. In Richmond, a precinct opening was delayed because the person who had the keys overslept. Hundreds of people swarming the branch library cheered when its doors finally opened." (Boston)