[From the NY Times blog written by Frank Bruni:]
brunif - 11:29 PM ET November 2, 2004 (#11 of 11)
Color by Numbers
Developments have stalled. No color for Florida. No color for all that land around the Great Lakes. The whole Midwest is a whiter shade of pale.
Watching television feels like sitting in an endless, redundant class on American geography. At this point, I could trace the outlines of Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin in my sleep.
I call a plugged-in colleague from another news organization. He offers one and only one safe prediction: In the future, exit polls may never be watched as closely as they were four years ago and again today. These polls were off in 2000 and have been much kinder to Kerry than the vote count now seems to be trending.
“They seem to tell us the wrong thing every time,” my colleague says.
Over the last seven hours, the campaigns have done a personality swap, which is visible and audible when their allies and lieutenants hit the airwaves now. The Kerry camp seems tense. The Bush contingent seems cautiously optimistic.
Four more years? I’m not sure we can last four more hours.
Carl