Disgusted
I am no doubt going to be the one sour spot among the folks on my Friends list, because I am not totally thrilled with the way events went tonight. It wasn't the election itself that made me unhappy as much as it was the media coverage.
We had friends come over to watch the election coverage. (It was collective night; part of our family and theirs are involved in the same activity, and then we usually get together for dinner afterwards.) My daughter, who is 11, was watching with us. She is extremely interested in math, so we used this opportunity to explain Mark Twain's quote about "lies, damn lies and statistics." The news media provided us many examples of the misuse of statistics, calling a state for one candidate or the other, sometimes with less than one percent of the votes counted or with a difference smaller than the margin of error. I even saw a couple where one candidate was marked as winning even though he was behind by several percentage points. I was extremely disgusted when the media started announcing that Obama had won the election, about two minutes after the polls closed in California. It's been shown in the past that exit polls do not necessarily represent how the actual vote is going to be divided. Why not wait another 30 or 60 minutes to at least see how the actual vote is going?
Worse than the media, though, was John McCain - who conceded the election to his opponent before the polls even closed in Alaska. Way to respect the voters there! I complained about this to my husband, who pointed out that Alaska has such a small number of electoral votes that it wouldn't make any difference. Yeah, I know. Let's face it, Nebraska is the same way. That's not the point! What a way to treat your supporters, in the VP nominee's home state no less. "We don't even care how much you support us; we're pulling out now while we have a chance to look really gracious." Phooey.
Our friends went home before things got to that point, and I was trying to get my kids to go to bed. My older son (age 15) has learned that sleep is a good thing, and that bed is a nice place to be, and willingly went. My daughter took a little more encouragement but she had tired of the coverage from her earlier watching. My younger son came in shortly after the start of McCain's speech, and listened to it. I don't know how much of it he understood, but he knew that McCain was saying that Obama was going to be president. Then he wanted to stay up and listen to Obama's speech. I will no doubt regret it in the morning, but I let him do so. Although tomorrow morning may be difficult, hopefully it will be a memorable event for the boy and in later years he can recall that his mom let him stay up really late and watch Obama's speech on television.
My devious mind does have one question about the situation. What if, as the actual votes are counted, some of the states estimated to be for Obama turn out to be voting for McCain instead? California is an obvious example - strongly for Obama by percentage, but with only a very small part of the vote counted so far, it could still turn around. Florida is another example. Almost all of the votes were counted, but the margin was extremely small. A bunch of early votes or absentee ballots could make the difference. (Note: I don't expect this to happen; this is speculation.) So, what if the votes turned around, and McCain ended up with enough electoral votes to be president? He's already given a speech conceding the election, but the people want him for president. What could he do then?
It is with some trepidation now that I view the sweep of the next four years. Maybe all the folks who saw this election as a source of hope will be correct, and things will be much better. I just don't have any confidence in that, myself. (Yes, I am by nature pessimistic. This should not surprise anyone, given the title of my LJ.) I do expect, though, that the next year or so will see an unusual amount of sweetness and light in the roleplaying game industry, as all the people who are filled with hope by this situation reflect that in their words and actions. (I'll believe that when I see it!)