{"id":3521,"date":"2002-11-04T08:10:44","date_gmt":"2002-11-04T13:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3521"},"modified":"2002-11-04T08:10:44","modified_gmt":"2002-11-04T13:10:44","slug":"spoiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/04\/spoiled.html","title":{"rendered":"Spoiled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe it was growing up with <i><b>Decision &#8217;80 <\/b><\/i>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;ll grow to hate this phrase) &#8220;too close to call.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thought the overheated punditry, uncertainty, and, hell, mudslinging will be over Wednesday morning?  <a title=\"Battle for Senate may drag on\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/news\/830094.asp?0na=x2305262-\">Think again.<\/a>  Between bizarro state election laws, ballot changes, and litigagion-happy Democratic and GOP &#8220;observers,&#8221; we might not know the final results until the New Year.<\/p>\n<p>Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe it was growing up with Decision &#8217;80 style network coverage of presidential elections. It gave Americans such as myself a sense, a tradition, an expectation of clean, crisp, clear-cut,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":46050,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/23\/as-we-hurtle-toward-the-election.html","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":0},"title":"As we hurtle toward the election","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Oct-14 5:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My wife and I have voted. I would encourage everyone else to do so, too. Yes, even Republicans (I, for one, think heavy voting is better on principle than light voting, even when it doesn't favor my point of view), but particularly for Democrats. These things make a difference. Are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/senate%2Bforecast.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31129,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/the-battleground-states-and-what-to-do-about-them.html","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":1},"title":"The Battleground States, and what to do about them","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-12 6:04am","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting look at how fast the whole \"battleground\" \/ \"swing\" focus on just a handful of states has happened.The problem is not, though, the Electoral College system itself. \u00a0That's been around a couple of hundred years. \u00a0My question would be -- why have so many states become so homogeneous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12934,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/04\/maps_a_plenty.html","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":2},"title":"Maps a-plenty","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Sep-08 4:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Is it too soon for me to start obsessing over polling and electoral maps? Electoral-vote.com: President, Senate, House Updated Daily Election Projection: 2008 Elections - Polls, Projections, Results FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Elections 2008&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9739,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/08\/jaccuse_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":3},"title":"J&#8217;accuse!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Nov-06 10:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Aha! The reasons the Republicans lost the House (and, maybe, the Senate) wasn't because of Tom Delay, or Bill Frist, or Mark Foley, or Karl Rove, or Jack Abramoff, or...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Elections 2006&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2006","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2006"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52018,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/01\/us-elections-show-me-the-money.html","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":4},"title":"US Elections: Show Me the Money","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 1-Aug-15 7:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As we start to watch the money rolling into the Presidential Election of 2016 ... the results are not encouraging except for the biggest-bucked of donors. (Emphasis mine):'The 67 biggest donors, each of whom gave $1 million or more, donated more than three times as much as the 508,000 smallest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11790,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/31\/dems_in_the_house.html","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":5},"title":"Dems in the House","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 31-Jan-08 8:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"While I've not been wowed by the performance of the Dems in Congress to date (I really dislike the Democratic leadership, and, hampered by GOP obstructions in the Senate, they've...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Elections 2008&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}