Maybe it was growing up with Decision ’80 style network coverage of presidential elections. It gave Americans such as myself a sense, a tradition, an expectation of clean, crisp, clear-cut, computerized, colored-map elections, where results came in as raw numbers, percentages, then projected winners across the country, different states lighting up as blue or as red, usually with the results obvious early into the night.
The 2000 Presidential election changed all that, with both parties learning that (a) elections could be actually really close, hinging on a literal handful of ballots, and, worse, (b) which handful was actually counted, and how, could be settled in court.
Hence the unprecedented Mid-term Mess, where control of the Senate (and, through it, the current government) hinges on a variety of Senate races around the country, many of which are (we’ll grow to hate this phrase) “too close to call.”
Thought the overheated punditry, uncertainty, and, hell, mudslinging will be over Wednesday morning? Think again. Between bizarro state election laws, ballot changes, and litigagion-happy Democratic and GOP “observers,” we might not know the final results until the New Year.
Merry Christmas.