History in the Making

I’ll be live-blogging our family experience with this historic 2008 election. Updates will be frequent throughout the night.

6:00p – We convinced Carter to stop playing Wii to join us with our election watching. Archie, though, is watching Scooby Doo on the other iMac.

6:35p – BBC World News coverage rocks. Great for kids, too, since they explain everything. Lots of Brits and foreigners to educate.

6:43p – “90% say candidate’s race not an issue” text is juxtaposed with discussion of the Bradley Effect. Boys are whining over spilled milk, hoping the liquid will disappear on its own without interrupting Scooby.

6:58p – Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, and Vermont kick off the electoral college watch. It will be 6a in the UK by the time Sarah Palin’s Alaska closes their polls.

7:01p – projections: Kentucky (8) to McCain … Vermont (3) to Obama.

7:07p – The Brit announcers all have red poppy flower things in their lapels. Also, Liverpool won their football game on a penalty kick.

7:15p – Indiana plays the most prominent and pivotal role in the success of Barack Obama, according to Newsweek.

Newsweek Scorecard

7:24p – Watching the huge crowds in Grant Park and thinking about 13 year old girls in Somalia. Wondering how much effect changes in the US could have around the world.

7:28p – WFIU is giving Indiana back to Mitch Daniels. Bummer. Hoping for an Obama bump that would put Thompson in charge and get rid of Daylight Savings Time.

7:30p – North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia polls are closed.

7:34p – BBC reports FOX is calling West Virginia for McCain. BBC won’t call anything until they get their own information.

7:40p – Teeth in Archie’s mouth are brushed. Time to read, perchance to dream. America, don’t do anything foolish while I’m gone.

8:14p – Carter greeted me with news that his NaNoWriMo story is going to incorporate a Presidential race. Also, Monroe County voted for Mitch Daniels, but Elizabeth Dole lost her race (to the “heathen”).

8:18p – Obama is up 103-34 in the electoral vote count, thanks to a projected win in Pennsylvania. Only 32% of Indiana reporting thus far. … John Sununu lost his Senate seat, bringing the Dems up 5 seats. w00t!

8:25p – Best tweet of the night so far belongs to Jake Panovich: “Right now CNN reports Obama has about 1.337 million votes. How eleetist.”

8:31p – I’m loving our family politicking, but I’m jealous of my Informatics colleagues camped out at the IMU with Luke Russert of NBC. Obama up 103-49.

Luke Russert Reporting for NBC from IU

8:40p – Now added group chat on Meebo with Richie and other locals. Very multi-modal. We’ve got Twitter + chat + BBC + two computers + liveblog + NaNoWriMo. Still 90 minutes to Comedy Central. … Fail Whales starting, alas.

8:45 – Lake Shore Drive from 33st avenue to Grand is blocked off in Chicago. Sis-in-law Meg can’t get any closer, but she took a picture of George Bush frowning on the Crown Fountain.

8:55p – Locally, Geoff McKim and the other Democrats move into the lead for Monroe County Council with 5% of precincts reporting. BBC folks see 52% of Indiana in with 51-48 McCain lead.

9:01p – TechPresident is hosting the VoteReport liveblogging of the election. Obama up 171-52 now.

9:09p – Carter is at 4168 words in NaNoWriMo. He then exclaims: “This is so exciting. I never realized boring old votes could be so exciting.” … BBC says FOX is calling everything early, “Trying to get it out of the way, it seems.” Pip pip.

9:16p – BBC has two people sitting at laptops surfing the web for information. One mentioned Twitter, and then said an insider in the McCain camp in Florida says they lost the state (and probably the election).

9:24p – Indecision 2008 servers are swamped. Just trying to confirm when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are going to entertain. There is a chance Obama will clinch the nomination before it starts. I hope they are watching John Bolton put the “ass” in Ambassador.

9:35p – Obama leads 195-90. Katrina chased most of the Obama supporters out of Louisiana, giving it to McCain. The H-T has had their local election site down for most of the hour with the message: “Please stand by while we adjust for changes in accounting procedures at the clerk’s office … ”

9:42p – Carter, bounding around when Obama reached 200, has now been contained under a blanket on the couch. Just in time for Texas to give all their votes to McCain.

9:58p – Stunned by how far CNN’s breaking news email is behind Twitter. About to say goodbye to BBC World News and hello to Comedy Central.

10:07p – Epic intros by the Indecision ’08 folks. Stewart has blue cards. Colbert has red. And another favorite tweet by Noah: “Wolf Blitzer just told us that the red states are for McCain and the blue states are for Obama… ”

10:14p – The H-T came back up. Geoff McKim is in fourth, about 400 votes behind. Jason Jones is “live” in Chicago, in front of a Disney set of bluebirds and deer: “This is what Chicago looks like when Obama is in town”

10:18p – A special Twitter account, wfiuelection08, is reporting: “presidential race is tightening in Indiana, now 50% to 49% for McCain, 86% of precincts reporting”

10:26p – Flat-tax advocate and editor Steve Forbes is on Indecision 08. The last time I saw him, Daily Show was making fun of him for not blinking during an entire interview as a Presidential candidate in 2000, suggesting he was an alien. Also, Stewart on McCain: “Isn’t it odd that a guy with 14 houses is done in by a credit crisis.”

10:34p – Stephen Colbert is live blogging about Twittering tweets. … Monroe County is stuck on 73% precincts reporting, and Indiana is at 88%. Obama trails McCain by fewer than 4,000 votes, or the equivalent of an IU football game home crowd.

10:45p – Archie is up again, asking for water and ready to fall asleep again on the couch. Carter is demanding that Comedy Central be “live” … a problem when we are trying to filter out the late-night ads.

10:51p – Charles Ogeltree, a friend from Harvard, jokes that he thought the Obamas were going to be Republicans. Colbert is now looking at tonight as a big win. The answer to http://isobamapresident.com/ is: “Almost”

Is Obama President? … Almost

10:54p – Indiana just went Obama, with 93% of precincts reporting. About 6500 vote lead. Obama also just won Virginia, Democratic for the first time since “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho.”

11:01p – Jon Stewart called it for Obama, conveniently before signing off. CNN just called it, with 297 electoral votes for Obama, 145 for McCain.

Is Obama President? … Yes!

11:08p – Back to BBC. Ready for news about Indiana. 94% reporting. Archie is racked out on the couch, but Carter is happy like the rest of us.

11:17p – Just got Colorado to move to 306. Waiting for McCain’s concession so we can hear Obama’s victory speech. BBC is interviewing Tracy Chapman. Um, OK.

11:18p – McCain is conceding. His crowd is booing Obama. He offers sympathy for the death of his grandmother. “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but in offering goodwill to come together.”

TwitScoop at the start of John McCain’s concession speech

11:30p – The boys didn’t make it through McCain’s speech. Glad Carter got to be around for the moment Obama got his electoral votes. The only suspense left: Will Indiana officially become blue, and what will the president-elect say?

11:45p – As anticipated, there was a huge surge of Twitter traffic the moment the word came that Obama got his 270 votes. I’m still getting the catch-up tweets. Looks like Obama may be speaking in about 15 minutes.

11:50p – This is the first time I have voted for the guy who won. Dukakis … Perot … No one … Nader … Barbara Lee … now, Obama. Lots of primary disappointments between 1988 and 2008. BTW, Gore Vidal is giving the BBC guy a difficult time (“I don’t know who you are” and “If you let me talk …” and “I’m surprised you asked the question, because I know so much about the topic.”). In true Brit form, the newscaster closes with, “Well, that was fun.”

11:58p – Up 23 seats in the House, some. Indiana is at 97% with a 6K lead for Obama, who is about to speak.

12:00p – “Tonight is your answer”

12:15p – “We are not red states or blue states. We are and always will be the United States of America.” … “Change has come to America.” … “We, as a people, will get there.” … “This victory tonight is not the change we seek. It is the chance to make that change.” … 106 years of America, as seen by Anne Nixon Cooper. …22 seats gained in the House. 6 seats gained in the Senate. And one new puppy in the White House.

TwitScoop in the midst of the Obama victory speech

Stuck at 97%

Still no word on Indiana. Still, not a bad day for a skinny kid with a funny name.