Otterblog

A crazy last few days, most of it spent in the Richmond area, as our company tries to figure out the direction of the media business in 2009 and beyond. And I apologize for not posting ...

Anyway, Election Day is here. Short voting line at my polling station this morning. Does that mean something? Drizzly day. Does that mean something? There has been so much analysis and uber-analysis of this race that it makes your head spin. Conventional wisdom is out the window at this point. The only things left to do are to vote and to count.

As for predictions, here are mine. North Carolina will pick McCain by a slight margin, but Obama’s coattails will be enough to carry Perdue and Hagan to eke out wins. Obama will win national popular vote 52-48, and the electoral vote in the low to mid 300s.

I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again…So no Dewey/Truman jokes please…

Covering elections is always crazy, and along with the preparation of who’s covering what and making sure all our editorial ducks are in a row comes the most important question ... Who ordered the pizza. I’m serious. A bad pizza experience is something that can live on for months/years. And from the attached message below from the News & Observer, you can see it is not confined to the Journal. For the record, we have no slice limits ...

From: “Susan Spring”
Date: November 3, 2008 11:46:07 AM EST
To: [Raleigh News & Observer staff]
Subject: Pizza etiquette

I want to remind you that pizza will be provided tomorrow night ONLY for
those working on elections. Please be polite. If you are working elections, you may have up to TWO slices. Thank you in advance for being considerate.

Susan Spring
Director of Newsroom Operations
The News & Observer
(919) 829-4860

A message from executive editor John Drescher a few hours later:

There will be no two-slice limit Tuesday night (although if Susan Spring chases you with a knife in her hand, you are on your own). And anyone who is here can partake.