I don't usually daylog this much, but given the activity of the last two days, I feel this is as good of a time as any to write logs.
I was thinking of writing something more technical tonight, but after 48 hours of being hunched over my laptop hitting "refresh", I think I will make my observations more casual.
As I wrote two days ago, I was pretty sure where this election was going. But as I also wrote, I was still not totally sure. And the process of watching an election online --- waiting for the New York Times or Google's maps to refresh --- is certainly an unsteady one. Depending on the state, the first results can be wildly skewed from the final one. Some states have their absentee and early ballots reported first, which makes them look more Democratic than they will be. Some have rural ballots reported first, which makes them look more Republican. The map is an odd patchwork: I spent the first hour analyzing returns from the generally non-representative states of Indiana and Kentucky. We have spent years guessing which states will go which way, but when the returns first come in, the map is an odd, unpredictable motley. Wisconsin Republican? South Carolina Democratic? But over the course of the night, order restored, and the final map was surprisingly close to the "consensus". I said that I didn't suspect any "WTF?" moments, and perhaps the closest I have come to one was that there were so few surprises.
I have also announced that I am a member of Team No Gloating, and now that this is past, I have no reason to start any flamewars, especially since the candidates I supported mostly won. However, I do reserve the right to gloat about a few media personalities who wildly misconstrued the race. But that segues into an entirely different discussion...