Call the Electoral Vote

[Grallon]

What time do the results come out?




G.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The earliest States will close at 7 PM eastern. In that first batch Virginia is the only notable swing state. At 7:30 North Carolina and Ohio close, at 8:00 a lot of the other big swing states close (Pennsylvania, Florida), by 9 PM eastern essentially all important swing states will have closed.

Around 9 you might be hearing them call Virginia and maybe North Carolina. Ohio is a clusterfuck so I doubt they call it until late into the night to avoid embarrassment of any kind.

If you have states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio called before 10 then something unexpected is probably afoot. Either Obama drubbing Mitt or a big Mitt rally.

[frunk]

So in a moment of grave sadness my wife revealed to me she cast a vote for the Kenyan Interloper. Key takeaways:

1. She isn't a huge fan of Obamacare but thinks it is a move in the right direction. This is becoming common at her hospital as more of the doctors are crazily starting to support legislation that could undermine their high pay and country club lifestyles.

2. She says that Romney is far too elitist and doesn't have the interests of the middle class or lower class whatsoever.

I almost choked at hearing this. If America had landed nobility, my wife's family would be part of it, they're about as close to true aristocracy as you can get in this country. They literally trace back to the beginnings of Virginia and were wealthy plantation owners before guys like Washington or Jefferson were even born. On her maternal side, she has a great-grandfather that ran a large coal mining and later timber operation, uncles that have been bank Presidents. On her paternal side there's a long line of lawyers, several that have been honest-to-god judges (and not BS justices of the peace, but real jurists--and in Virginia our legislature appoints our judges so it tends to be even more of an insular and cliqueish group), and her own father was President of a pretty large newspaper before retirement. This is a woman who went to one of those ultra-expensive, small private Southern schools and whose brothers and father were majorly involved in polo while at UVA (note it's a self-funded sport there with the participants owning / maintaining their own horses and equipment.)

While I was tying a deer I'd just killed to the hood of my Trans-Am in High School and getting ready to pound a bottle of Evan Williams with my friends, she was going to white tie cotillions. If anyone in this family can speak to the middle class it'd be me.

Sounds like she's also has a lot of experience of dealing with elitists, and can spot one when she sees one.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Now, several of the big swing States have large scale mail-in voting this year and have had in-person early voting. Most of these states will immediately be reporting the results of those votes shortly after the polls close as they are already counting them and will have them ready by that time. Now, the early voter and mail-in voter demographic is usually statistically significantly different from the election day voters, so you might see one of the candidates with big leads in that first batch of release as they have big leads among those voters. (Essentially Obama is projected to have good leads among early voters and mail-in voters, and Romney is expected to do better with election day voters, but it varies a good bit from state to state.) So the first batch may look like one candidate is already doomed in that State but I'd expect the races to tighten over the night. The media and the candidates both know this, so don't expect the election to be called early or a concession phone call anytime tonight, maybe not even tomorrow.

[crazy canuck]

So in a moment of grave sadness my wife revealed to me she cast a vote for the Kenyan Interloper. Key takeaways:

1. She isn't a huge fan of Obamacare but thinks it is a move in the right direction. This is becoming common at her hospital as more of the doctors are crazily starting to support legislation that could undermine their high pay and country club lifestyles.

2. She says that Romney is far too elitist and doesn't have the interests of the middle class or lower class whatsoever.

Like all wise men you married someone smarter than you.

[CountDeMoney]

While I was tying a deer I'd just killed to the hood of my Trans-Am in High School and getting ready to pound a bottle of Evan Williams with my friends, she was going to white tie cotillions. If anyone in this family can speak to the middle class it'd be me.

Sounds like she's also has a lot of experience of dealing with elitists, and can spot one when she sees one.

No kidding;  my sister married into a prominent St. Louis family--neither she nor my nieces would never have to work if they didn't want to--and it's interesting to see how, among that old-monied, traditional midwestern Republican collective, even they can't fucking stand the guy.

Even the douchebags of the 1% can tell the douchebags of the .1%.

[Neil]

And the douchebags of the 7.9% hate everybody.

[dps]

The problem with the Greens or the Libertarians is that they are self-defining as fringe parties.  They will never be the seed for a viable alternative party because they are completely captured by their own acitivists who foist this kind of self-indulgent claptrap onto the platform.  If a competitive third party is to arise, it will need to have a much broader base of appeal and be closer to the mainstream. 

I don't think that there'll ever be an actual viable 3rd party for more than 1 elections cycle.  Any 3rd party that gets any real chunk of the vote is going to either be co-opted by one (or both) of the existing parties, or will replace one of them.

We've had a 2-party system almost from the start.  The identities (and ideologies) of the parties have changed a few times, but things always come back around to a 2-party system within a few years.

[DGuller]

The problem with the Greens or the Libertarians is that they are self-defining as fringe parties.  They will never be the seed for a viable alternative party because they are completely captured by their own acitivists who foist this kind of self-indulgent claptrap onto the platform.  If a competitive third party is to arise, it will need to have a much broader base of appeal and be closer to the mainstream. 

I don't think that there'll ever be an actual viable 3rd party for more than 1 elections cycle.  Any 3rd party that gets any real chunk of the vote is going to either be co-opted by one (or both) of the existing parties, or will replace one of them.

We've had a 2-party system almost from the start.  The identities (and ideologies) of the parties have changed a few times, but things always come back around to a 2-party system within a few years.

I agree.  The reason why there are only two viable parties at any one time is that our system is designed that way.  The way ideological shifts happen is by different wings of the existing parties taking power, not by third parties rising.  The GOP of today is radically different from the GOP of 100 years ago (in fact, the Democrats of today are what the GOP of 100 years ago was, more or less, except for the plutocrat wing).

[Count]

My prediction: O wins every swing state but NC

[Grallon]

So in a moment of grave sadness my wife revealed to me she cast a vote for the Kenyan Interloper. Key takeaways:

...

I almost choked at hearing this. If America had landed nobility, my wife's family would be part of it, they're about as close to true aristocracy as you can get in this country. ...

  It never ceases to amaze me how so many in the lower classes always seem to buy into the rhetoric of the upper class faction - whatever it may be called from place to place - not realizing said faction isn't working for their interests at all! 




G.

[CountDeMoney]

Apparently, they still have long lines and have run out of ballots in Racine, Wisconsin.

[Caliga]

My ex-girlfriend's fawning pro-Obama posts on FB are annoying me so much that I now officially want Romney to win.

[Ed Anger]

My ex-girlfriend's fawning pro-Obama posts on FB are annoying me so much that I now officially want Romney to win.

I'm getting heavy GOP derp from one of my brothers.

[Drakken]

Florida is gonna be the shit state again, Obama is leading by slightly over 300 votes, after 78% of the polls opened.