Twelve months of campaigning, billions of dollars in campaign spending and enough enough hacktastic advertising to shame even the slimiest local used car dealer finally comes to a head tonight. Based on the stories already coming out of the several states, fraught with reports of broken down voting machines and attempts at disenfranchisement, this is shaping up to be a long, painful night for all those involved.
As your intrepid live-blogger is a full-on masochist (he is a Cleveland Browns fan, after all), he will bring you all of tonight’s punditry, pontification and premature fapping at Florida going for Romney.
The polls start closing down at 7:30, but it seems plausible that many states will have voters going well past that based on them getting in line ahead of poll closings. We’ll start the party around 8:30, but feel free to bathe in your own vodka-glow in the comments before that.
A special message from Burning River and The Grand Inquisitor:
Many, many thanks to the members of the Crass Election Team, who have put in many hours of hard work to bring you the last couple days of election fun. Please give your thanks to Lucky, Enesbit, Glorious Shoes, MonkeyBiz, Cletar, Miss Anita, SidandFinancy, Lauren, Ross, Scootcha, Daisy Walker, Tuna Melt, TS, OrneryBabe, HaysiFanta
It really has been a joy and we are honored to serve with you.
8:25-Phew-Seeing all the stories about the lines and the issues at the ballot box today makes me glad that I voted last week, and can just camp out with all of you tonight. Housekeeping, as always-Hat tip to Cletar for the image at top, which I asked for weeks ago just to creep him out.
8:26- Housekeeping #2-I’m watching on MSNBC tonight, but we will have dedicated folks from the election team popping in with comments from watching other networks-including MB, who’s watching Fox. So, ladies, send your undergarments too….
8:29- Rachel Maddow seems to be almost lamenting that Virginia, Florida and Ohio are too close to call. Here’s the thing I’ve never quite understood: These people spend a year or more preparing for tonight, fapping themselves over a tight race, then, when the night comes and they can’t call a race across 4 time zones (plus Alaska and Hawaii) less than an hour after polls close, they bitch?
8:32- Still very early, but right now, in the eastern Senate races-Bill Nelson and PROFESSOR (that’s for you, Scott Brown, go fuck yourself) Elizabeth Warren are tracking ahead-good news in both cases for the Democrats.
8:35- Also for Senate, friend of the blog Josh Mandel is getting curb stomped by king of the raspy voice Sherrod Brown. I’d predicted 7 points. You should have taken the over there.
8:38- Jesus Christ, MSNBC sold ad time for this? How fucking much are they paying Al Sharpton?
8:39- I just saw MSNBC’s projection of electoral votes in bar graph form on 30 Rock. And we wonder why most of the world hates us.
8:43- The former Republican Sec. of State in Ohio, where the current Republican Sec. of State is lighting the franchise on fire in the front yards of minority voters, says ‘you can’t take the politics out of politics’. Deep thoughts.
8:46- H/T to MonkeyBiz for pointing out that Joe Manchin (D-WV) is holding a somewhat surprising early lead in his Senate race.
8:48- Less important but, there’s a Republican House of Rep. candidate in Oklahoma named Markwayne Mullin. I’ll let you all surmise as to how many bodies are buried in that guy’s basement.
8:50- Also worth pointing out is the number of people still standing in line in Virginia and Florida-if there’s a better case for telling the networks to muzzle it on reporting results, especially in an age when folks can check their phones- I’d like to hear it.
8:52- MB checking in from Fox ‘Fox is now discussing whether or not the GOP needs to reboot if they lose.’To this I reply: YES, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS.They’re suggesting “tweaks” may be required.’ No word on how ‘tweaks’ translates to repealing the 15th Amendment.
8:55- Ohio, NC, Virginia, New Hampshire and Florida are too close to call, with PA to early to call. In other news, water is wet and fire is hot.
8:59- With 1% in, it seems as though PA’s Senate seat has gone to Democratic candidate Bob Casey. I have no idea how anyone can call anything with 1% in.
9:00- Roughly half the polls in the country just closed. With that, Mitt Romney’s ‘home’ state of Michigan is projected to go for the President. I guess those trees aren’t quite the right height after all.
9:02- Wyoming, where people move to get everyone else to leave them the fuck alone, Mitt Romney is the likely winner.
9:03- From the early returns of the ‘too close to call’ states North Carolina and Virginia are breaking for Romney, albeit by Ann Coulter’s soul-sized margins.
9:04- MB reporting in from Bullshit Mountain ‘And no, I can’t screencap my 50″ HDTV Tucker Carlson is on. Kill me now.’
9:07- The big winners in NJ? Everyone endorsed by Bruce Springsteen. The losers? Sorry, too soon.
9:08- For at least the third time tonight, CNN’s electoral map page crashed on me. Apparently, Erik Erickson’s donut and rentboy budget took priority over their server budget.
9:11- For anyone getting concerned about the map that shows Romney 153, Obama 128, remember that California, Oregon and Washington are still voting, and Ohio is going to be going long into the night.
9:13- If anyone else is ready to throw their computers over CNN’s election map, here is the Google version, which seems a lot more stable: https://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results
9:15- MSNBC is calling PA for Barack Obama. Here, Willard, drown your tears in some Yuengling. Oh, what? You can’t, because religion? That’s a shame.
9:16- Alex Wagner, as always, is a sight for sore eyes. Especially after an hour plus of Chris Matthews.
9:17- Right now, incumbents are generally holding serve in the Senate, which is good news for the Democrats, but Arizona, Minnesota, and Nebraska have races that are too close to call.
9:20- Because I care about it-little cunt rag Josh Mandel has closed the gap to 15 percent. That’s right-closed. He was losing by more. He’ll get closer as the rural counties come in, but he will lose.
9:22- Just so we are clear: This is the richest country in the world, hugely technologically advanced, and people are waiting hours to vote like it’s a Soviet breadline? Clearly, we could do this much better.
9:23- According to our commenters (thanks Cletar and, Jesus, DennyCrane, it’s good to see you) Liz Warren is going to take Seantor Pick-up Truck’s Senate seat. Given that Ted Kennedy’s assprint is still in that chair, that seems fitting. One hopes that Brown still has that pick-up, makes cleaning out the office in January a lot easier.
9:24- It’s too early, and there are bigger races, but given how much he sucks, it’s worth pointing out that heinous person Allen West is trailing 52%-48%, with about one quarter of the vote in. Suck it, loser.
9:28- The state of Wisconsin is back to Barack Obama. Hilariously, in a way, as he is still trailing there, based on the figures MSNBC showed. By their measure, the Buffalo Bills won a couple Super Bowls.
9:32- Senator Gravel Throat wins! I will be scouring for Josh Mandel’s mealy-mouthed concession. Also, eat a dick, Karl Rove.
9:37- Joining All-American Loser Josh Mandel on the Loser Train is Richard Mourdock of Indiana. The Rust Belt and Midwest seem to be making a pretty strong statement thus far tonight.
9:42- Okay, so Brian Williams uncalled it, and now Rachel Maddow re-called it? Elizabeth Warren, back in the saddle again.
9:42- Poor Chris Jansing got shipped off to Romney Headquarters for this endeavor. Not sure who she pissed off.
9:47- Losing the Indiana Senate seat to a Democrat is the GOP’s own damn fault for letting Richard Mourdock even take a shot at Dick Lugar. It’s also exactly what the GOP deserves for undertaking the political equivalent of feeding a Mogwai a large pizza at 1 AM with the way they’ve courted the Tea Party.
9:49- John Boehner is on TV slurring his way through a speech about the GOP holding the House, claiming there’s no mandate for raising taxes, rather than admitting it as a victory for gerrymandering, especially as they bleed Senate seats.
9:51-I’d like to go ahead and say that I look forward to Willard’s speech tomorrow morning, where he claims he can still win this thing.
9:57- Programming Alert!! The Tundra Grifter will be joining the Fox News crew all too soon. Prepare for her 2016 announcement!
10:03- Aw, they made Chris Hayes put on a tie tonight. He’s all grown up!
10:06- She’s a bag of poo of a Democrat, but she’s still a Democrat-Ladies and gentlemen, McCaskill is tossing Todd Akin into the Mississippi.
10:09- That Linda McMahon got 45% of the vote for anything other than ‘second worst WWE executive’ says something less than good about our republic.
10:11- Fun with small numbers: In Cuyahoga County, where I live, with just the early votes counted-Sherrod Brown 72%-Josh Mandel 25%.
10:13- One more fun with numbers piece (via Google)-Obama leads Romney by 8 points in Ohio right now, and the very large county of Cuyahoga has not started counting election day votes, same with the equally blue Lucas county in the NW corner of the state. Conversely, many of the small, rural counties are in or mostly in, though a few have yet to start reporting. Shorter version: Mitt Romney is running out of places to run in Ohio.
10:22- Florida is still really fucking close. I feel like it’s 2000, except I’m not half drunk watching this in a dorm lounge.
10:24- Hilariously, all the right-wing soon-to-be-defriended wackos on my Facebook page are oddly silent right now. These vote totals are the first facts they haven’t been able to ignore in four years.
10:32- Chris Matthews is VERY cranky about the fact that Elizabeth Warren may give her victory speech without Brown having given his concession speech. Steve Schmidt thinks it is poor form, shockingly. I agree with Chris, I’d like to see Scott Brown own his defeat.
10:36- Another worth noting: Tim Kaine and George Allen are neck and neck in Virginia. Please tell me George Allen is not at all going to get another opportunity to serve as an elected official.
10:41- The MSNBC embeds are reporting radio silence from the Romney campaign, who apparently aren’t answering the phone. On the other hand, Robert Gibbs is on Fox right now letting Megyn KKKelly berate him. It’s telling that this is happening in parallel right now. I have no snark, just kind of amusing that Romney’s folks seem to have retreated to the rich kid’s clubhouse.
10:43- Mitt’s stage at his campaign headquarters has a whole bunch of American flags on it-looks like 1 for each battleground state he’s going to lose.
10:47- Todd Akin is giving his concession sermon. He is the saddest rape-clown.
10:50- I just heard Joe Scarborough’s name on MSNBC. I for one, look forward to him weeping through his show tomorrow.
10:55- Honestly, I don’t even think Elizabeth Warren can believe she won this thing tonight. How sad is she going to be when she realizes that Mitch McConnell has no use for her ‘facts’ or ‘statistics’ or ‘reason’?
10:58- Andrea Mitchell was apparently rescued from the abyss of MSNBC to be bothered by Brian Williams tonight.
10:59- With reports of some folks still standing in line in Virginia and other places, one wonders if Tea Party voters have enough battery power in their Hoverounds to get through the line.
11:01- Is there a better live performer than Jon Stewart?
11:04- North Carolina to Mitt Romney. Fitting that the Confederacy is going to a candidate who’s church was largely anti-African American until 1978.
11:07- All in all, Mitt Romney should probably be a bit relieved that things aren’t looking good for him right now. He’d have been very disappointed to find that he couldn’t sell the White House to a shell corp he owns, then force the gov’t to lease it back for his use and profit.
11:09- If you, as a Democrat, can win Iowa that handily, you have a big ground game, my friends.
11:11- Well, at least Joe Walsh will now have an excuse for not paying his child support.
11:12- The whole West Coast for the President. Yawn. Has the sun even gone down there, yet?
11:12- NBC is calling Ohio for the President. Chris Matthews could be heard saying ‘we did it’. Hot mic, Chris! Hot mic!
11:15- I can hear Lou Dobbs pouting. FBN is feeding the 1% it’s red meat as we speak about takers and what not. That sound you hear is the wheels of progress grinding up old Lou’s food.
11:18- Good ol’ Brett Baier (and I’m paraphrasing) ‘The President won re-election because they campaigned well, not because the economy improved or he governed well’- Shorter version ‘Sour grapes taste bad’.
11:21- Remember, after the Miami Heat lost in the playoffs two years ago, LeBron James made those regrettable comments about how the people who hated them still had to go back to their sad jobs and their sad lives, and he’d still be LeBron James? I feel like Romney’s concession speech could sound a lot like that if he was being fully honest about how he felt.
11:28- Chris Jansing just reported that angry skeleton John McCain will be coming out to address the crowd at Romney headquarters. Clearly, there is nothing that man won’t outsource.
11:35- Holy crap, Fox News’ ‘Decision Desk’ just overruled Karl Rove’s concerns about the margin in Ohio. Roger Ailes is going to have a shit-ton of firing to do.
11:40- If Karl Rove gets Fox to somehow reverse it’s call on Ohio, it will be the greatest Rick Roll in presidential political history.
11:43- The Romney campaign still refuses to concede Ohio, is working on a second offer, considering Bain stock options.
11:51- Somewhere, Mitt Romney is trying to figure out who he needs to buy out to change this outcome.
11:53- TURN FOX ON NOW! Karl Rove is going to bully Fox’s actual numbers guy.
11:57- Karl Rove is just talking, talking, talking. It’s a wonderful display of total fuckery.
12:00- From the tips in the comments-(h/t to DennyCrane) Maryland has legalized gay marriage. Everyone prepare for Jesus to vaporize Maryland. Or, you know, for things to be pretty much the same as always, except with more civil rights.
Okay, it certainly seems like this is destined to go onward into the night, if only in service of Mitt Romney’s petulance, perhaps. I think it’s sad to see that, really, very little is likely to change with Barack Obama still having a bunch of fucking children to deal with in the House. With Colorado decided, it seems that this thing is over, independent of Ohio’s final outcome.
I have to say, we’ve had a blast covering this election, and I think we’ve done pretty well by it, with help from a whole host of people mentioned above. In a state of being more awake, I think I’d find room to be more gracious. Please know that all of you have made this a fun, interesting trip. Carry on to your hearts content in the comments, of course, and remember, socialism and sharia for everyone!
