The Ghosts Of Elections Past

Ross takes the words out of my mouth:

Even though I don't really see any way that McCain can win this thing, I've been conditioned - by the stalemate in 2000, by the exit-polling disaster in '04, even by New Hampshire flipping for Hillary this year - to assume that some sort of bizarre election-night twist will keep us up till three AM, half-drunk and reeling.

The notion of an election where the anchors know who's won by mid-afternoon, and where the suspense for television viewers ends early (when Virginia and Pennsylvania both go Obama's way, perhaps), seems like something old-fashioned, something retro, something out of my childhood that couldn't possibly happen in the crazy world of twenty-first century America. So while my rational mind expects an easy Obama win, as of this morning my irrational mind is suddenly convinced that come nine PM tonight, some furrow-browed announcer will be remarking on his this is much, much closer than anyone expected ...