election day liveblog

Welcome to my Election Day liveblog. Oy.

8:56 AM (Atlantic Time!): On Twitter, Election Day is already in full swing. People come out of the voting booth choked up. “Are you fired up?” A resounding yes.

8:58 AM: Dear Ann Coulter, please shut up. You make me embarrassed to be a white woman. Do you really think that Obama will institute slave reparations? Or have you just plain run out of things to say?

9:04 AM: I just don’t think these “Don’t Vote” ads are funny.

9:24 AM: Just read Afrobella’s Election Day post. She’s got a great standing-in-line-to-vote survival strategy list. So touching to hear her talk about how she wants to vote but can’t. Her hopes for Obama, America and her unborn children.

9:31 AM: I voted. Where’s my Starbucks?

9:32 AM: Michelle, Barack, Sasha and Malia are all in line to vote this very moment. Apparently Sarah Palin will arrive in Alaska right about now to vote, then get herself to Arizona by tonight. Sucks to be her.

9:37 AM: Twitter friends are reporting long lines but no other troubles so far. Voters are turning out in droves, and early! Like, arriving at 5:44 AM and being 17th in line early. I feel calm now. I woke up this morning so nervous. I still feel like I’m waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery, though.

9:38 AM: Obama just scanned his optical ballot. Hold me!

9:47 AM: What is up with New Hampshire? Can we really extrapolate a landslide for Obama from a 15-6 win?

9:49 AM: More later. Gotta go run some errands, including wrangling some wine for this evening. YingYang’s coming over to watch the results.

10:45 AM: Email from girlfriend in NYC: “Being pregnant rocks! I voted in ten minutes!!!!” Others are not so lucky…

11:00 AM: Polls are now open everywhere except Alaska and Hawaii.

11:15 AM: Anovelista just posted photos of her voting experience in Newark, NJ.

11:17 AM: According to MSNBC.com, the first polls close at 7:00 PM EST and there won’t be much to chew on until then. Let’s hope for an early call in Virginia, which will be an excellent sign for Obama, and late calls in Georgia and South Carolina, which will indicate big African-American turnout in those states and a possible national landslide for Obama. Huzzah.

11:24 AM: Tavis Smiley asks: “Anyone know the address of the 7th Day Adventist Church in Crenshaw area where the power went out and people are voting outside?” Wow.

11:28 AM: According to CNN, it’s raining so hard in Virginia people are getting so wet they’re dripping on their ballots, which then won’t go into the optical scanning machines. Poll workers are now telling people to dry off before going into vote. There are also some issues in Florida, but I’m so not going there. Sigh.

11:36 AM: Fond memories of the Fire House in Nyack, New York, where I used to accompany my parents into the voting booths. I thought the practice machines were for me!

3:33 PM: Just got back from St. George’s, aka town. Obama bumper stickers all over the place. There would be t-shirts, I’m sure, if they weren’t 1) mad scarce and 2) 80 bucks a pop.

When I got home, Jack met me at the gate. I said, “Jack, GooooBama!” Usually he throws that right back. Today, though, he said, “Nuh, ‘Bama! Cookie!” We’ll forgive him ’cause he’s two.

While I was out Mom saw the Donna Brazile clip from this morning. (find video) She says to me, “You wouldn’t believe how emotional this is for black people”. Actually, Mom, I kinda do. I was remiss, however, in not making sure you saw Charles. Also in letting you get all your news from TV. My bad.

Rasta in the St George’s market: “Black man in de White House, hahahaha. Get it??” He looked so unbelievably happy. When I told him I voted for Obama, a couple of weeks ago by mail, he said, “You Irie, Sis”.

WiseMan emailed to say that I’m wrong about the Don’t Vote videos. “i disagree with your election day blog - i love the don’t vote ad - it’s wonderful.” He’s the only person I know with a subscription to the Hollywood Reporter, so I’ll defer to him on this. I stand corrected, WiseMan.

4:41 PM: Time to cook. What should I cook?

5:16 PM: Crazy wall post from my cousin about Halloween rampage. She and some friends went out and stole a dozen or so McCain-Palin signs. This was in a very very tony suburb of Westchester, NY. The next morning my uncle looked at her like she’d gotten into Harvard. Ah, youth.

5:39 PM Email from girlfriend in Philadelphia. “so i just volunteered at the south philly obama hq and called people for a few hours. they were very well organized and had a ton of people. i really hope obama wins tonight - i think the whole thing is so freaking cool. i am going to a bar to watch election returns and will
probably cry when he wins.”

5:41 PM: Donna Brazile is awesome. Alex Castellanos seriously needs to lay off the spray tan.

5:48 PM: I am so totally grossed out by this telling people to vote on Wednesday bullshit. That ain’t sportsmanlike.

5:54 PM: Someone got to this blog by Googling “Obama going to Grenada”. (Huh?) Just starred a bunch of stuff on Twitter, but I think my brain might explode if I spend any time there tonight.

5:58 PM: Why is John McCain still campaigning today? Oh, right. He’s desperate and losing.

5:59 PM: I still haven’t started cooking. First returns in an hour or is it two? We don’t have Daylight Savings Time in Grenada, so I’m getting confused. I’m teaching the baby to thread his belt through his jeans.

6:05 PM: Jack Cafferty has just asked a very good question, How would you change how we elect our President? Hmmm, let’s see… The Electoral College is as vestigial as an appendix… We should be able to call an election whenever, like in Australia or England or Grenada… We have a kajillion ways to vote, but we should have more like two or three… And oh yeah, the campaign lasts FOREVER. I’m a poltical news junkie and even I have been wanting to impale myself for the last bunch of weeks. Should I go on?

6:09 PM: Wow, Sarah Palin went to a lot of trouble to vote today. Not quite like that couple in India, of course, but still. “Forever I’m gonna be Sarah from Alaska,” she said. Classic.

6:22 PM: Totally unoriginal thought: Starting tomorrow, no more yucky campaign commercials, yay!!

6:24 PM: Oh, Rudy, you old fraud, you.

6:38 PM: 12 minutes until the first polls close! CNN is reporting the 70 something percent of new voters went for Obama, and 60 something percent of all voters consider the economy the #1 issue. Good, good. The wait to vote in some places is 5-7 hours. Not so good. But that does mean lots and lots of people are voting… I just don’t like to think about the ones who gave up and went home. This is why I always walk with my book.

6:50 PM: Drudge appears to have called the election for Obama. “EXIT POLLS CLAIM OBAMA BIG WIN.”

6:53 PM: This is hot: Times reporter attends the Obama family victory feast in the village of Kogelo, Kenya, and brings along a live goat. It was of course the UK Times. The NYTimes is not cool like that.

7:14 PM: I have expectations for neither Indiana nor Kentucky. Trivia: Kentucky and part of Indiana do not have DST, hence the seeming earliness of their poll closings.

7:15 PM: I love cooking with sea salt.

7:52 PM: Vermont, Kentucky, Meh. Tell me something l don’t know. Indiana is very close, with Obama ahead at the moment. If he takes Indiana… None of these results are final, anyway, just the networks calling it.

7:55 PM: Virginia now has two Democratic Senators and a Governor. Nice. (Though I don’t want a filibuster-proof majority, trust me.)

8:01 PM: Food is bubbling, nearly finished. YingYang is on her way. I just poured my first glass of wine. My stomach hurts and I’m sweating. Time for a moment of peace, aka a shower.

8:11 PM: I’m a liar. And Jamie’s right, we should have rented oxygen tanks. Woo-sa.

9:51 PM: WE HAVE MSNBC. OMG. REUNITED WITH KEITH. NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON.

Normally you can’t watch MSNBC in Grenada. Tonight, Channel 10, in its infinite wisdom, is carrying it. Praise Jesus and pass the possum.

11:44 PM: MSNBC is being really cautious about calling states but not about calling the election. Wow. Pat Buchanan just said something to the effect of President Obama’s got a tought road ahead…

Rachel Maddow: Um, I think John McCain deserves some credit for his own loss…

Priceless.

11:51 PM: It’s over. Wow. Thank you, California. Wow. Wow.