8:55 P.M.: And coming to you live from the Battling the Current election headquarters it is time for Decision 2006. I’m joined by experts and…ah, who am I kidding. I can’t convince people to come to my Super Bowl party, there’s no way I was going to get people to watch election tallies with me. Just envision me much like Homer Simpson right now, sitting on my couch holding a pennant that reads “Democracy”.
8:57 P.M.: So this will be another experiment in live blogging. I’ll be watching the election returns and giving my insight into the races. It’s like when I cover the Oscars, except with a lot less glamour.
9:00 P.M.: Hey, Ted Kennedy won in Massachusetts! I didn’t even know that he was running. Heck, Ted probably didn’t even know he was running. Probably showed up at the polls this morning and went, “Uh, why is my name on the ballot? Has it been six years already?”
9:02 P.M.: Chocola looks to have lost the Indiana house race. This is only of note because he was the rep for the South Bend district so I got inundated with ads for him two years ago. I always found it funny because I always assumed that he was actually Count Chocola and running on a platform of fiscal responsibility and sugary breakfast cereals for everyone. And I don’t care about those spurious claims made by Boo Berry, I considered him to be an upstanding candidate.
9:06 P.M.: For those wondering, I’m watching the ABC coverage right now. Katie Couric is just too perky for me to handle this late at night and while Brian Williams is a cyborg-in-arms I always get the feeling that he is going to start shooting laser beams from his eyes and killing half the crew. ABC is slightly calmer and features Stephanopolous, who always makes me think of Sesame Street. (I’m watching in high def as well because, ok, there is no reason for this. It just makes the graphics a little nicer.)
9:11 P.M.: I should admit my prejudices up front. I voted the way I always vote: straight ticket democratic and against all judges unless they are Irish. I mean, who the hell do the judges think they are? What gives them the right to tell me what to do? You keep the Irish ones though, just in case you ever need to appear in court. Basically, I just vote the way I was taught to in Chicago civics courses. We were basically taught that the two party system was a crock and that a benign dictatorship was much preferred.
9:21 P.M.: I’ll be bummed for one Republican loss, which is Chaffee from Rhode Island. He was a good, independent minded politician. They threw out an incredible stat, his approval rating is in the sixtieth percentile and he still gets voted out. Really shows that this a referendum on something a lot bigger than a state election.
9:29 P.M.: Speaking about tallies, I watched a bit of VH-1’s Top 100 Songs of the 80’s countdown. I had to turn it off, even though it would have been beneficial for my trivia contests. They listed The Clash’s “London Calling” the 41st best song of the 80’s. I have two issues with this. One is the fact that the song was released in 1979. The other is that if you are making any musical list and include London Calling it is ranked in the single digits. I don’t care if it is a list of wedding polkas, on that list London Calling comes in eighth.
9:32 P.M.: Oh, and a joke I should have made at trivia on Friday. After missing a question on what amendment gave women the right to vote, “I didn’t know they needed a constitutional amendment to let women vote in American Idol?”
9:35 P.M.: Looks like Phil Kline is losing in the Kansas Attorney General race. That would be nice as I’d prefer an Attorney General who, I don’t know, doesn’t break the law every five minutes. Kline is quite possibly the only Attorney General I have ever seen who considers the Constitution to be optional.
9:42 P.M.: I wonder if the other analysts don’t believe that Stephanopolous actually exists. Like maybe he’s just a figment of Charles Gibson’s imagination. (Yeah, I know that Snufflaupagus’ existence is now known by everyone on Sesame Street but in my mind, only Big Bird knows about him. And why I know that and not the names of both senators from Missouri is beyond me.)
9:51 P.M.: Ok, this is getting boring. I’m switching over to Pants Off Dance Off.
9:52 P.M.: Or maybe that should be called, “Dear God, please put your pants back on.”
9:57 P.M.: The view from the couch so far. Democrats will pick up control of the house but are going to just fall short in the senate. Which means a good deal of gridlock for two years. In my mind, that might be an improvement.
9:59 P.M.: Wow, they’ve gone an hour of breaking news coverage and still haven’t talked about the biggest news story of the day. Who cares about a Connecticut house race when Brittney Spears has filed for divorce? Where is the wall to wall coverage of this? I mean, my entire faith in the concept of marriage has been shaken to the core. If Brit and K-Fed can’t live happily ever after what hope do I have? Life is just so unfair.
10:01 P.M.: The Johnson County soccer bonds have been defeated! That will teach those seven year olds a lesson. Start playing real sports. For those not in Kansas, this was a $75M bond issue to build 20 soccer fields. Yes, that is nearly $4M per field. Apparently, nine year olds need domed fields and Jumbotron screens. Jeez, when I was a kid I was happy to have one little league field with lights.
10:04 P.M.: Time for Stewart/Colbert, which will be slightly funnier than the regular coverage.
10:15 P.M.: Hey, we got our first Mondale joke of the evening! One of my favorite moments in the history of politics was at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. At one point, PBS was talking to Mondale, McGovern and Dukakis and asking about how they viewed Clinton’s campaign. I was seriously waiting for one of them to go, “Well, he’s doing the absolute opposite of what I did so I’m pretty sure he’s doing good.”
10:21 P.M.: Checking in on the Illinois results (where I may or may not have voted a half dozen times today. Man, I love political machines.) Blago was reelected governor, beating Julie Barr-Topinka, who is actually from my hometown. As someone born and raised in Berwyn, I feel confident in saying that I really don’t think the governor should come from that town. Hell, I probably shouldn’t be allowed to operate a website after growing up in that town. It’s not that the town is on the wrong side of the tracks, it is that the tracks literally went through my front yard. I’ll assume that Lipinski the Younger also won, nearly twenty years after I won a history contest sponsored by his dad. You want to get my vote? Let me win a hundred dollar savings bond by knowing that John Marshall was a Chief Justice.
10:27 P.M.: Dan Rather just quoted Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “You can’t have your pudding unless you eat your meat.” I should probably stop drinking now.
10:31 P.M.: A marathon commercial reminds me of something. I’ve got to hand it to Lance Armstrong for breaking three hours in the NYC marathon. You have to admit, that guy’s got ball.
10:32 P.M.: Oh, stop groaning. You try being creative after watching Wolf Blitzer’s beard for four hours. Seriously, does that guy ever look in the mirror and go, “Maybe the Santa Claus look just isn’t the best one for me.”
11:04 P.M.: I’m now watching the 1980 All-Star game on ESPN Classic. Yeah, time to call it a night. Or at least take a nap until the rebroadcast of Pants Off Dance Off.
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