I was a little scared until I saw the long lines in Florida and Ohio...
Whether you watch MSNBC or Fox or The NFL Today, you are watching folks whose job it is to make the game seem better and closer than it really is. They want you watching. They need you watching. It's what they do.
Chuck Todd. Chuck "Fucking" Todd, as I like to call him, was going on for days about the possibility of a 269-269 tie in the presidential race. Others touched on that too but, it was his thing. Was it a possibility? Sure. Almost anything is possible. I'm graced with exceptional, very- basic math skills and I know that. Life is 50/50, most of the time. Something either happens or it does not. But, the pundits, whose job it is to keep you watching and (hopefully) bringing the station ad revenue, were all over the place with predictions. If you had a prediction of your own, they probably had a man or woman sharing your prognostication.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. If they say it looks like a blow-out, people might stay home, thinking their guy has a lock or no chance in hell. That's kinda human nature. You might drive by an accident and drive on thinking someone else will stop and help. OK. But, if everybody does that, nothing gets done. So, the networks- for the reason of ratings- do serve a purpose when they endeavor to call it close. They make people believe their vote is important, encourage people to get involved.
MSNBC was pretty confident Obama would win but, they cautioned it was going to be close and probably fought in the courts like 2000... Maybe they hoped? They're news junkies. That would be their nirvana. I get my Foxnews from Jon Stewart and Colbert so, I know they were promising a Rmoney victory of the landslide persuasion.
Stupid fuckers. I doubt that affected republican voter turn out but, I don't know that it didn't. I just think it's stupid to get too cocky before the game. They still have to play the game and you have to turn out.
On Election night, I Facebooked and watched a movie. Those first few hours of coverage are a lot of; "...with 1% of the vote in...it's too close to call..." I don't need that when I can be sorta watching Matt Dillon chase bank robbers while joking with my friends. I turned on Jon Stewart, who was doing a live show, when I noticed that Ohio- which had been deemed THE most important state EVER in THIS election in the Power Rankings- had been called...FOR OBAMA!
What the? At 10:15??? I had been told by Chuck "Fucking" Todd that this would go on for days, weeks... because of Ohio. I mean- this was great but, what the what?
I switched over to MSNBC and they seemed as stunned as I. Happy but- what the what? Then word came out that Karl Rove was on Fox disputing the whole Ohio thing because it flew in the face of everything he had predicted and worked so hard for. And, ya know, that lasted about five minutes. The very spankable (but sadly crazy) Megyn Kelly walked through the studio and asked the numbers geeks at Fox if they were certain of the outcome in Ohio. Yes, yes they were. Perhaps Megyn isn't as crazy as I suspect because she returned, sat down with Rove and asked him if maybe this wasn't something he wanted to believe because he's a republican? OUCH!
Yours truly knew all along that Obama should win. We all know he had accomplished A LOT in his first four years and done it without ANY help from those awful republicans who had vowed to make him a one-term president, the moment he had won in '08. And, being a student of the game, I just couldn't see a fucking liar with NO plan other than undoing EVERYTHING his predecessor had done...on his first day and who actually said he could solve the economy in EIGHT TO TEN YEARS(!!!!) beating him. No way.
So, close, maybe. Close enough for them to cheat? Sure. But, we fell for that in '00 when the USSC 'decided' the election and that couldn't happen again. In '00, there was no incumbent. You screw around with this election with Obama in office and things would get ugly. Ugly could be spelled coup.Or Civil War?
So, turns out it wasn't all that close. Obama won by 2 million votes and like 128 Electoral College votes. Fox may not think that's a mandate (and they don't) but, it's TWO MILLION more votes than there guy got in the popularity contest and a severe spanking in the EC. Bowl. It was a solid victory, indeed.
I knew Obama would win when I saw the long lines. People don't stand in a line for hours to vote for a guy who considers them the lazy, 47% and whose party made it so fucking necessary for them to stand in line to vote because most other forms of suppression had been shot down. No, they stand in line to vote for the man who deserves their vote and who isn't fucking with them.
The people have spoken and they were outstanding!
5 comments:
Thanks, Sue!
So glad it's over!
What a night! I'll never forget it. And how about the music that accompanied is acceptance speech? And the speech itself? Wow!
And then there are the pouters who are crying "Doomsday!" hahahaha!!
It was awesome, Barbi! The 2nd place finishers will just have to get over it and actually try to cooperate. They lost to passion, sincerity and skill. They should recognize that and learn from it or they will be toast.
These are pretty much my sentiments as well. (If I'd read this post first, I'd have just linked to it instead of writing my own.)
Oh, but I doubt there will be any "cooperation" from the Republicans. That's just not how they do business as far as I can see.
Thanks, MM. I'm afraid you are right about the lack of cooperation as their way of doing business. They whipped themselves and their fans into a frenzy of obstruction and probably do not see a way to come off of that. They can't admit where they went wrong. Pride comes before the fall? They're falling hard.
Post a Comment