22.55: my brother Nick starts accusing me of missing out on his 'pearls' of wisdom on the blog so I better get started. Paxman is solid as ever on Newsnight. Richard Lister in Sarasauto looks like he's hanging out by the houseboats, ready to get his party on.
22.57: Nick goes to bed.
23.15: Maureen Dowd of the NY Times compares Sarah Palin to both Princess Diana and Eliza Dolittle. Diana because McCain wanted to 'marry' Joe Lieberman, but got set up with the younger, better looking model and both camps are now sniping at each other. Dolittle because she was decked out in all the finery. Please God let Obama win.
23.18: turn over to BBC1 to find a fat, greying Matthew Kelly crying in a graveyard.
23.20: 'Who'll succeed George W.Bush?' the announcer asks...here we go. BBC all the way tonight, taunter of grandfathers and lorry drivers.
23.23: Jeremy Vine is in some space age studio, there's a blond woman in Times Square talking to bloggers. 'Look they've made a musical out of LEGALLY BLONDE' points out my other brother Edd, spotting the billboard. He's my wingman tonight. But we're not sarging, we're electioneering.
23.27: McCain's base is in Arizona. Time for some Public Enemy 'By the Time I get to Arizona':
An he can get to the joint
I urinated on the state
While I was kickin' this song
Yeah, he appear to be fair
The cracker over there
He try to keep it yesteryear
The good ol' days
The same ol' ways
That kept us dyin'
Yes, you me myself and I'ndeed
What he need is a nosebleed
Read between the lines
Then you see the lie
Politically planned
But understand that's all she wrote
When we see the real side
That hide behind the vote
They can't understand why he the man
I'm singin' 'bout a king
They don't like it
When I decide to mike it
Wait I'm waitin' for the date
For the man who demands respect
'Cause he was great c'mon
I'm on the one mission
To get a politician
To honor or he's a gonner
By the time I get to Arizona
23.34: there's a town in Japan called Obama. They've baked cakes.
23.35: First rumbles about insufficient voting resources for minority areas in Virginia. Bad memories start rising.
23.39: interesting stuff about young voters not having landlines only cell phones so they can't be polled, which means they've under-estimated the number of people for Obama
23.41: John Simpson in Chicago. First Kabul now Grant Park. Simpson IS the frontiersman of freedom and democracy in the world. Up to a million people expected.
23.44: Schwarzenegger believes McCain can win. Go with him if you want to live, John.
23.48: Matt Frei toys with terrorist terminology, describing Obama as an 'insurgent' politician who has turned field marshal, taking leaves out of the Karl Rove playbook.
23.50: Right 270 electoral votes to win.
23.51: Jon Sopel is mucking about in a coffee shop in Virginia, 13 electoral votes up for grabs here, 75% turn out estimated. Six mins to go...
0.01: 'Living after Midnight/Rocking to the dawn'. McCain first projected to win Kentucky with 8 electoral votes, then Obama to win Vermont with 3. Fascinating stuff about how they project the results, with affiliate network ABC, how the different networks have isolated 'projection rooms' in which those working don't get influenced by the other networks. Designated counties give feedback and then there's exit polls. But democrats tend to talk to exit polls and not republicans because they're inherently suspicious of the liberal media.
00.03: Clive Myrie makes first mention of Martin Luther King in Georgia. 90% in exit polls say race is not a factor. Of course it is...the race for the white house that is. haha! Anyway, it's the economy, stupid.
00.09: bag of tortilla chips opened.
00.10: always funny watching the pundits try and string things out with nothing really happening. Prof Larry Sabato looks like David Schwimmer with a moustache but makes some telling comments about McCain only getting 3% of the black vote, which is lowest since the 60s for a republican candidate.
00.19: Ricky Gervais followed by Christopher Hitchens. I couldn't care less what Gervais has to say about anything. Hitchens looks scarily like Canongate's old MD. He thinks the night is 'zeitgeist-changing' and 'seismic', and is wondering aloud if McCain is as ill mentally as he looks physically. This is more like it. The George Galloway/Christopher Hitchens tour was a spectacle to be believed. Should be stuff on youtube.
00.31: 'And as for hell, we've been to West Virginia'. No more (projected-from now on just assume this) results. But chat about men preferring McCain but women coming out for Obama in way more significant numbers.
00.33: Vine going talking Ohio and Franklin County. sounds like an awesome place. Used to be big into illegal distilling. Split counties ahoy in Ohio. BIG state.
00.34: Fox/CBS go for McCain in West Virginia
00.40: footage of MCain on his plane. The guy did 3700 miles yesterday. He's standing between a cardboard cut-out of a younger, healthier self and his unnerving (Stepford) wife.
00.42: More gold from Sabato: McCain 'had the scarlet letter R emblazoned on his forehead' following Bush
00.43: Dimbleby is getting nervous we haven't had more results 00.48: Super-dry blogger geeks going on. Tortilla chips with hummous (Edd's right, they're good together, the cool hummous off-sets the tangy tortilla), next coke. Still going strong, feeling good. Alert. How about some fucking results?! At this rate I'll be tempted to stick on my 'Pink Floyd: Live in Pompeii' DVD
00.51: At least Hitchens is still laying into the Republicans for complaining about being the 'poor party' in this election.
00.58: Justin Webb describes the effect of a black family in the White House as a reflection of American identity, it's all starting to feel real but still crazy
1.00: Obama predicted to win Pennsylvania!!! Goodbye McCain. 15 more to come now. There's New Hampshire too! Hitchens just commented how McCain's SNL appearance and chat to the press on his plane was a subliminal concession.
1.02: They're coming in thick and fast now. McCain takes Tennessee but it's largely blue. 77-27 to Barry.
1.04: The pundits are saying the game might be up.One big, swing state could tip it now.
1.06: Gas leaks in polling stations, Custer's last stand. The Republicans are talking crap in Pennsylvania. All eyes on Indiana apparently.
1.07: Flurry over, 103-34 to the blues. It's like Tottenham-Arsenal all over again.
1.09: Shots of the crowds in Grant Park. Talks of early figures in Florida. Email from Republicans say they've won the Puerto Rican governorship. Well done!
1.11: Jeremy Vine's platform looks like the one Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader fight it out on in the Return of the Jedi. Lots of talk about the Southern states now. Florida looking mixed. Can he see his screen or is like the weather where only the camera sees it? Counties, precincts, raw data...it's heady stuff.
1.14: I thought Orange County was in California! Doh. Elizabeth Dole has lost her Senate seat in North Carolina because she claimed her opponent was Godless. Hitchens backs that up by saying Americans don't like religion being used for political purposes. He hates Jesus Christ our saviour too.
1.23: Very slow result in Georgia, they think it might be because something's afoot in the Red State. Exit poll says that 97% of African Americans voted in Georgia!
1.31: Alabama goes to McCain, as does Arkansas. Indiana still important. Lyndon Johnson won in '64 apparently. 103-49. He's pulling it back!
1.33: BBC has a really old ex-news anchor banging on about questions over Obama's experience. They've been talking about that issue for about 20 mins. Shut up old man, you're time is over!
1.34: Frei calls Obama an 'insurgent' again.
1.44: Jesse Jackson is out bigging up Obama. A man he said 'talked down' to black people and that he wanted to 'cut his nuts off'. But now his win will bring a 'real sense of joy'. Jackson is a living embodiment of how Obama has followed in the footsteps of the civil rights pioneers, and simultaneously exemplifies the divide between Jackson and Obama's generations. 15 states coming up.
1.57: Dimbleby starts dissing the 'dismal' electoral procedure in the US. He compares electronic voting to being at a supermarket checkout. It's a good rant at this stage of the night.
2.00: more states: Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York to Obama. 171-52. Only 100 to go.
2.02: Fox calls Ohio for Obama. No Republican has become president without carrying Ohio. Having the right wing Fox come out for Obama is a big deal. Georgia to McCain.
2.13: Yuppie elitist Jay McInerny stumbles through some political analysis.
2.16: Historian Simon Schama and Dubya's Ambassador to the UN John Bolton join the party. It's feeling a little flat at the moment. But that's John Bolton for you.
2.22: Bolton is spoiling the party big time by laying into Katie at the Republican party for criticising the choice of Palin. 2.29: Ohio confirmed by BBC. Landslide of 350 electoral votes predicted. Rupert Murdoch has a dig, Oprah is 'vibrating'.
2.35: They're rounding on Bolton now. Election cycles are the topic of conversation and the US as a perennial centre right country and the 'fickle' factor where after 8 years voters get sick of the president and change them regardless. We seem to have passed the discussion of IF Obama gets in and onto what happens when he lets everyone down!
2.40: New Mexico to Obama. Schama is teasing Dimbleby to call the election. Should be about an hour now. No problem. Feeling perky. 200-124.
2.47: Bolton laying the blame at the door of the financial crisis. It's a fair point, imagine if it hadn't happened. Would have been tight.
2.50: cut back to the studio from democrats eulogising about changing the world (yawn) and Bolton saying 'Let me tell you a story...' off camera. you bet it would be great, but Dimbleby cuts the chatter short. Damn.
2.50: Iowa has 8 pigs for every human being apparently.
2.53: One of Obama's campaign managers on TV at Grant Park. She's very plastic; tolerant smile. Slick as the campaign as a whole. Too slick?
2.56: Starting to flag now. I'll push for 4am. You have to struggle for freedom and democracy.
3.00: More states: Iowa (Baz), Montana, Nevada and Utah (Bernie Mac)
3.06: Eddie Izzard of all people comes up with the quote of the night: 'The third millennium starts to night. Slavery ends.' Stick to the comedy.
3.18: Schama makes the point that the old confederacy seems to have voted for McCain, which is poignant considering that Obama will be the first black president of the USA. Old divisions die hard.
3.25: As the night progresses the BBC's coverage grows more frayed, with sound not working, delays, items cutting into speakers. Nick Robinson pops into Downing Street for a quick link 'on his way home'. Must piss Gordon Brown off being disturbed like that.
3.30: California in half hour, 55 votes, it's 207-135 so he will be almost there.
3.41: Things have really slowed up. Watagwan?! Nancy Pelosi on the mic.
3.45: Quick blast of Half Man Half Biscuit's 'You're Hard' wakes us up. Just read an interview with Cream's Jack Bruce saying Led Zep have always been 'crap'. Fuck you, Jack! Losing interest now because it's a foregone conclusion but annoyingly it's not there yet. He'll have a big mandate Obama it seems.
3.55: big states coming up in 5...California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
4.01: FUCK, California 5 votes to Obama and Washington too, 273-141. He's broken on through. Barack is the 44th President of the USA!!! Dimbleby is quoting JFK. Time to sleep, perchance to dream...
4.00-5.30: didn’t sleep then after all, but had to stop to take it all in…McCain’s humble and honourable concession speech…the irritating booing and jeering when he was saluting Obama…Jesse Jackson’s tears…Gore Vidal’s irascible, dazed and confused interview with Dimbleby…the sight of the first black family in the White House…Obama’s incredible speech…40 years since the ‘68 rioting in Chicago and the first Black president…the revolution has been televised.
Great blog, Dan.
