TsunamiCast 2010

Coverage begins after I return from taking my daughter to the polls to help de-Murrayize Washington for the first time in her life....

6:04 PM PDT: Alrighty, then.  It took my daughter a lot longer to vote than this old hand because she neglected to take the time to go through the voter's pamphlet first and then make her own cheat sheet.  I was waiting at our polling place when it opened this morning - it was still pitch dark out - and was in and out in five minutes.

One of the virtues of voting at the crack of dawn is that you avoid the rush (if there is one), get it out of the way, and don't have it hanging over your shoulder for the entire day as a distraction.  If you're a procrastinator like I am, you end up driving like a madman down South Prairie Ridge at 7:45PM to try to make it in before they close the doors on the Orting firestation.

The OTHER virtue of voting at the start of the day is that you don't get distracted by the polling place being packed and drawing false hope from it - or vice versa.  Every election day all the blogs are filled with anecdotal evidence of high turnout in GOP areas, low turnout in Dem areas, "I haven't seen a Donk sign yet!" etc.  That stuff is rarely if ever indicative, but is rather the blank canvass upon which partisans project their hopes and dreams - kind of like Barack Obama, really - and in the same way, they usually end up disappointed.

Our election coverage is a little different this time, because (1) we actually HAVE some, as opposed to two years ago when I knew we were going to get slaughtered and so watched cartoons all evening (or whatever); and (2) it wasn't a throughout-the-day kind of thing.  Just your straightforward live blog of election results starting (almost) from when the first polls close on the wrong coast.

I actually did have an idea to do a six hour live Election night podcast with Doug Gibbs, my on-air partner on ADR Week In Review each and every Saturday afternoon, but he's got his own city council race going on tonight and was unavailable.  Ah, well.  If he loses I can let him have it on Saturday.  If he wins, I'll probably never hear the end of it.

So, what have I missed?  Let's take a look at the Senate side:

ALABAMA: Called for Richard Shelby (GOP hold)

ARKANSAS: Called for John Boozman (GOP pickup)

COLORADO: With 5% reporting, Republican Ken Buck is....getting trounced by double-digits by incumbent Donk Michael Bennet.  I sure hope those are the Denver precincts reporting first.

CONNECTICUT: "Hanoi" Dick Blumenthal kayos GOP babyface Linda McMahon while the crooked ref looks the other way and scores the one-two-three. (Democrat hold)

DELAWARE: Chris "Lenin" Coons crushes Christine O'Donnell, completing the Tea Party's worst clusterbleep of 2010. (Democrat hold)

FLORIDA: Marco Rubio laps "Sorry Charlie" Christ and Kendrick Meek combined. (GOP hold)

GEORGIA: Called for Johnny Isakson (GOP hold)

ILLINOIS: With 37% reporting, mob bagman Alexi Giannoulias isn't needing to cheat at all except to run up the score on Mark Kirk.

INDIANA: Called for Dan Coats (GOP pickup)

KANSAS: Called for Jerry Moran (GOP hold)

KENTUCKY: Called for Rand Paul (GOP hold) - Praise Aqua Buddha!

LOUISIANA: Incumbent Republican David Vitter out to huge early lead.

MARYLAND: Called for Barbara "Troll" Milkulski (Democrat hold)

MISSOURI: Roy Blunt thrashing Robin Carnahan with 9% in.

NORTH CAROLINA: Called for Richard Burr (GOP hold)

NORTH DAKOTA: Called for John Hoeven (GOP pickup)

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Called for Kelly Ayotte (GOP hold)

NEW YORK: Called for Chucky Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, respectively, with....0% of precincts reporting.

OHIO: Called for Rob Portman (GOP hold)

OKLAHOMA: Called for Tom Coburn (GOP hold)

PENNSYLVANIA: Oh, shit; you've gotta be kidding me - Joe Sestak leads Pat Toomey by eight points with 44% reporting?  WTF?

SOUTH CAROLINA: Called for Jim DeMint (GOP hold - I'd have made a "Prototype" joke, but not after Colorado, Illinois, and Pennsylvania)

SOUTH DAKOTA: Incumbent Republican John Thune was unopposed.

VERMONT: Called for Leaky Leahy (Democrat hold)

WISCONSIN: Ron Johnson pounding Fussy Russy into the ground; not called yet

WEST VIRGINIA: Called for Joe Manchin (Democrat hold) - I guess all those Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes are true after all.

That's a four-seat gain in the upper chamber so far, and so many disappointments to come, if this is any indication.

So what about the House?  Any wave there, "super" or otherwise?

Don't worry, I'm not going to plod through all 435 districts.  I'll just say: Congratulations, Speaker John Boehner.  Fifty-nine seats and counting; maybe some analyst will come up with an explanation for how "waves" can suddenly become so selective.

7:02: 

***COLORADO: Bennet by eleven with 7% reporting

***ILLINOIS: Gia-pet by five with 53% reporting

***PENNSYLVANIA: Sestak by four with 62% reporting

7:25:

***COLORADO: Bennet by five with 10% reporting

***ILLINOIS: Gia-pet by three with 64% reporting

***PENNSYLVANIA: Sestak by two with 80% reporting

***IOWA: Called for Chuck Grassley (GOP hold)

***UTAH: Republican Mike Lee out in front after an initial slow start

8:09:

Back from a double-bluescreen....

COLORADO: Bennet still by five with 22% reporting; boy, this count is slow

IDAHO: Called for Mike Crapo (GOP hold)

ILLINOIS: Kirk has taken the lead 48%-46%

OREGON: Called for Ron Wyden (Democrat hold)

PENNSYLVANIA: Pat Toomey now leading by 33,000 votes

WASHINGTON: Dino Rossi gets the jump on Porky Murray out of the starting gates.

ARIZONA: Called for Darth Queeg (GOP hold)

CALIFORNIA: Senator M'am out to the same four point lead by which she's been leading Carly Fiorina in the polls for months; check that - now Fiorina is narrowly out in front - it's neck & neck!

NEVADA: Uh-oh - SEIU Pencilneck jumps out in front - Clark county precincts counted first?

8:30 PM:

WASHINGTON: With 29% reporting, Dino Rossi is ahead....by eight percentage points.

8:54 PM:

PENNSYLVANIA: Toomsday! (GOP pickup)

WASHINGTON: 59% reporting, Porky back up by two

UTAH: Called for Mike Lee (GOP hold)

NEVADA: Pencilneck by eight with 13% in

CALIFORNIA: Called for Babsy Boxer with 15% counted....eh, whatever

COLORADO: In stasis; but if Ken Buck goes down, he can thank the clusterbleep in that state's gubernatorial race.

HAWAII: Daniel In-no-way retains

9:14 PM:

ILLINOIS: Called for Mark Kirk (GOP pickup) - and he'll be seated immediately for the Lame Duck Ambush, too.

COLORADO: Finally moves....to 38% of precincts reporting....and Ken Buck is within one.

9:25 PM:

Is this a bad time to post this Crazy Nancy quote from this afternoon?:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said late this afternoon that she is confident the House Democrats’ message to preserve Social Security and fight for the middle class will resonate with voters. “We’re on pace to maintain the majority in the House of Representatives,” Mrs. Pelosi told reporters gathered in a second-floor conference room at the Democrats’ headquarters in Washington.

I wonder where she is right now, because I'm positive she's genuinely shocked.

I'd still like to bonk her (in the face) with that Medicare gavel, though.  How else to break that damn thing (the gavel) so it can never be used again?

It's sixty-seven seats now.

9:38 PM:

NEVADA: Shit!  Damn!  Hell!  Qi'yaH!  (Democrat hold)  I could do a Christine O'Donnell redux rant on Aereon, but at this point I have to wonder if Sue Lowden would have done any better.  Which is every bit the suspicion of massive SEIU-fueled voter fraud that it sounds like.

Meanwhile, Carly Fiorina is still within seventeen thousand votes in California after having already been declared the loser.

COLORADO: Ken Buck leads!  Ken Buck leads! (49% reporting)

10:13PM:

Time for this hobbyhorse blogger to hit the sack.  I'll leave y'all with these thoughts:

If Ken Buck can hold onto - or better yet, expand - his at-last-report four thousand vote lead, and if Dino Rossi can somehow overcome the seventeen thousand vote deficit he's been stuck at for the past two hours, it will mean the seven seat Republican Senate pickup I made peace with last night.

Shinola, listen to that.  But can you blame me for wanting to be greedy?  And how out of whack is it that I'm barely noticing the biggest House gain for the GOP since 1946?

The bottom line is, we've declared to Red Barry, in the immortal words of Jean-Luc Picard, "This far, NO FURTHER!"  The next two years will be about "making him pay for what he's done!"

And look at that - the first batch of Alaska results has Luella Madcowsky up by five thousand votes.

Say good night, Gracie....

6:28 AM 11/3::

ALASKA: Not called yet, but "write-in" is seven points up with 98.6% of precincts reporting.  Unless 13,589 Eskimos are really atrocious spellers, the bug-eyed crackwhore has triumphed.  And if 13,589 Eskimos ARE atrocious spellers, King Frank's Supremes will give them all mulligans for using federally subsidized ink.

CALIFORNIA: Boned.  Remember Double-B being declared the winne when she was narrowly behind?  She's up this morning....52%-42%.  And now she's got a newfound "bipartisan" playmate on the Energy Committee.

COLORADO: Ken Buck's vote lead has doubled, but his percentage lead - just under half a point - probably means - DUH-DUH-DUHHHHHHHHHHH - a recount.  But eight thousand votes should be theft-proof, shouldn't it?

Shouldn't it?

WASHINGTON: 62.4% reporting, Porky by 14,005 votes.  It hasn't been called, but at this point King County Dems can fake however many votes are needed to knock down any Rossi comeback.

Are we actually SURE we have the House (sixty-five seat pickup as of this morning)?  Is that confirmed?  Locked in a bank vault protected by force fields?

It's funny how I feel so much less relieved and reassured than I thought I would.  Maybe it's because the O'Donnell, Angle, and Miller debacles and the Buck near-miss (?) [UPDATE: nope] pretty baldly declare that the Rove-Krauthammer GOP "establishment" had a point about electoral politics for high federal office not being an "entry-level" undertaking....but the Tea Partiers will be highly "unmotivated" to humbly learn that lesson, and instead re-double their fratricidal fury until even last night's Senate gains are excommunicated away.