Otterblog

There’s nothing quite like an election in a newsroom. Even on the best of days, there’s a lot of compressed action, as reporters and editors push copy through on deadline. On election night, it’s magnified, as we wait for results and then work to make sense of it all. Lot of yelling and pacing and hoping that a computer glitch somewhere doesn’t mean we don’t have the tallies from an important precinct.

The TV in front of my desk today has been on CNN alot, and it’s been an endless parade of talking heads, going nonstop on what they think is going to happen, with an incredible amount of hedging so that if it turns out differently they can say they were still right (or at least not wrong.)

The electorate is fractured and angry and confused and emboldened. It’s still uncertain how it’s all going to turn out.

My predictions last week: GOP keeps control of the Senate and the House. Now, I’m not so sure. Still probably the Senate, but the House is much more in flux, and I think the Democratic candidates in toss-up seats may match up better against their opponents than on the Senate side. On the other hand, the GOP is better organized and the Kerry flap was the little gas on the fire to get the troops riled up. We’ll see what happens.

If you have any good tales from the polls, let me hear them.

Update, 8:04: We just had our pizza. You can’t cover an election without pizza. We had a big pizza meltdown—no pun intended—on the primaries, because we were feuding with our previous pizza vendor after its owners tried to out our restaurant reviewer. We went to a national pizza company, and there was nearly a revolt. Now, we’re at Vincenzos and everybody’s pretty happy. 

9:30: There’s some sort of snafu at the Forsyth Board of Elections. They’re calling it nothing unusual, but it’s only know that results are coming in. It’s much later than usual.