Live Blogging The Election From Cotonou, Benin

19:39 A little over to 4 hours to the first polls closing. And a little over an hour until the supermarché with the coldest beer closes. I got a bottle of wine to hold me over until the election is called unless McCain starts winning stuff he shouldn't. CNN is on. Firefox tabs have fivethirtyeight.com talkingpointsmemo.com, huffingtonpost.com, slate.com, salon.com, and google reader. I'm watching for the end of Dole, end of Coleman, end of Prop 8, repudiation of the politics of accusation of anti-Americanism, and the continuation of Gregoire. When Sarah Palin says that my region of Capitol Hill is not the real America because we have gays, wine shops, and college degrees, it pisses me off and makes me hate the GOP even more. Fuck Sarah Palin!

19:53 I'm happy that fun Richard Quest is still on CNN. It's the first I've seen/heard of him since his night at the park. ;-)

19:59 I actually get the Hotel du Lac WiFi signal at the Hotel Riviera. They are pretty far apart. Amazing!

20:07 Actually, while I'm excited about Jeanne Shaheen probably winning the Senate, I'll be sad to see John Sununu lose. He is one of the GOP'ers I actually like. He asks good questions in Senate hearings and doesn't take BS. In fact, I saw John McCain smack Sununu down one day when Sununu asked a question and the witness started BSing and Sununu tried to cut him off to get the witness to stop BSing.

20:23 Rama Yade is on CNN. Cool.

20:42 OK, I just got 2 more Heinekens. The nice thing about getting them at 8 is that you don't have 2 way super heavy traffic with 4 moto-taxis for every car zipping in and out between every car. But instead you have a ton of moto-taxis with just headlights so you can't really gauge their speed. It sucks that Steinmetz is under construction and this little street one block off had to take all the traffic. I got back and found McCain on CNN. He just said Drill, Baby, Drill. Fuck the future generations, baby, fuck the future generations--so we can drive our SUVs.


21:09 I shudder to think what would be happening tonight if McCain had picked Mitt Romney.

21:34 I finished my third beer and first can of Pringles. And it's still 2.5 hours till the first polls close.

21:48 CNN is showing their behind the scenes operation. Who cares? I wish I had MSNBC, C-SPAN, ABC, NBS, and CBS.

21:57 Damn! Talkingpointsmemo reports that CNN is doing a live phone interview with Joe the Plumber. And I get European weather. Shit!!! I want to hear this moron!

22:04 What's Lieberman doing behind McCain? He wants to sit behind a loser again?

10:27 TPM headines McCain saying "I feel momentum". It didn't occur to me, seeing J oe Lieberman was behind him, that Joe's coined term was Joementum.

22:34 I can't figure out how to get this air conditioner to make me comfortable as opposed to too hot or too cold.

22:36 John King thinks the filibuster is the Mr. Smith Goes To Washington model.

22:41 Last Heineken is done. I'll wait till the first polls close before trying to open the wine with that horrible Swiss Army knife wine opener.

23:57 OK, polls will start to close soon...

0:00 Polls closing, Baron de Tillac Spanish table wine opening.

0:05 Worst cork ever. It took about 10 attempts to pull it out before I got the whole cork out instead of just chunks.

0:19 Still no results. :-/

0:34 Still not many results. KY? I'd love to see Mitch McConnell go down. Indiana? Long shot for Obama but if it goes Obama, it's over. I live in Indiana so I know that it's like a bit of the south in the north. I don't know why. I guess so Wisconsin and Illinois could get soldiers to the South in the early 1860's.

0:37 Do I need to refresh my C-SPAN AP results thingy or does it update in the background?

0:50 Virginia polls close soon. TPM has the Obama VA scenario and the McCain VA scenario. Poor GOP. Virginia used to be a GOP stronghold, but then smart people started moving there. Poor GOP.

1:03 C-SPAN AP thingy updates in the background. :-) I love C-SPAN. Three of my heroes are journalists: Josh Marshall, Brian Lamb, and H. L. Mencken.

1:05 Gratz to Mark Warner, the Senator elect of VA.

1:15 OMFG! CNN turns its journalists into MMORPG avatars! It's like a Anarchy Online avatar running a shield nano-program.

1:19 Power just went out, generator turned on. Damn you and your power grid, Benin! :-/

1:20 But that got through. Whew! Power is back at least. Life en Afrique....

1:36 Dems are happy about Vigo county in IN. I lived in Vigo county for a while. My first day there, I saw KKK members in full KKK garb collecting donations on the corners of downtown Terre Haute!

1:39 Why doesn't the C-SPAN AP thingy color Vermont blue?

1:40 Goddamn, I love election night!

1:53 I'm happy the internet sites are relatively responsive. :-)

1:56 Why does CNN's thing have Florida blue in their map when they haven't called it?

2:01 CNN projects a shotload of safe states. McCain gets the Okies and the Volunteers. No surprises anywhere there.

2:03 CNN says 71% of white voters voted for McCain in SC. Fort Sumpter, batten down the hatches. ;-)

2:05 CNN, damn you! If you don't call a state, don't color it in on the John King map!!!!

2:08 HuffPo projects PA for Obama. CNN is playing trends. Dammit! CNN, do you have news? If so, cut John King off and report it!

2:12 fivethirtyeight and TPM haven't updated in a long time! Come on! I need you!!

2:27 Sounds like Libby Dole is out. Good riddance!!!! How dare she try to smear her opponent with my religion. ;-)

2:30 NH for Obama by CNN. NH was part of McCain's tightrope. :-)

2:32 McConnell looks like he'll survive. Shit! He's a fucking asshole!

2:39 CNN calls PA for Obama. McCain's got all that Joementum.

2:41 Wow! Still OH, FL, and VA. Not time to celebrate yet....

2:45 Just checke the Senate map. Linsdey Graham who I like survived and Susan Collins, a RINO, did too. Shaheen/Sununu still not called. Sununu is down. I wish him well in his next career, though--one of the likeable GOP'ers.

2:53 CNN officially calls Libby Dole, atheist hater, out.

2:55 Getting glose to 3 am and I'm still excited as hell!!!

3:00 Another slew of Obama victories and McCain gets the lightly populated states of WY and ND.

3:01 It looks like the United States of Canada will get bigger and Jesusland will get smaller.

3:04 New CNN calls. The Udall dynasty continues. Jeanne Shaheen defeats Sununu. Sorry Sununu, but Shaheen will vote the right way.

3:06 Dammit! Microsoft updated my computer and now that damn "we will restart your computer in five minutes" stupid dialog box will incessantly appear.

3:19 Fuck! McConnell survives. He's such a prick.

3:25 HuffPo, TPM say Fox calls OH for Obama and CNN said a big projection before going to commercial. If it's OH, it's over for Pres. Just Franken, Prop 8, Gregoire to go.

3:33 CNN developed this hologram technology. Why aren't they using it? I want to see more-------
CNN calls OH for Obama. I can exhale!

3:48 Obama gets NM. LA goes to McCain. They eat agouti there, though.

3:50 Two tubes of Pringles wreaks havoc on your tongue. Or is it the Spanish table wine?

3:54 Do I start celebrating when Obama actually reaches 270? Or when all McCain's victory routes are cut off?

4:00 IA goes to Obama and UT and KS naturally go to McCain as they always will.

4:08 fivethirtyeight.com say Shays loses. Another RINO. Good luck in your future career. Chris Shays. You were one of the good GOP' ers.

4:12 AR returns to its racist roots. After electing the first black president, it wouldn't support the second.

4:17 If I go to CNN.com can I get that Bill Scheinder exit poll breakdown thingy?

4:21 CNN predicts TX for McCain. Duh!

4:28 CNN called MS for McCain a while ago. At least all they did was vote against him rather than murder his supporters and bury them in a dam.

4:50 Fox calls VA according to TPM.

4:57 C-SPAN AP thingy colors VA blue and the CNN table is chatting amongst themselves. Dammit CNN. Declare VA!

4:58 OK, VA is called finally. Whew! That's what happens when rednecks invite educated people to come and try to generate wealth. The state flips blue.

5:00 CNN PROJECTS OBAMA!!!!!

5:01 The long national nightmare is over! It won't end until January 20, 2009, but it is over. No more Rovian politics of fucking the liberals. No more settling for Southern Democrats in the White House. We have a Northern Democratic President in the White House for the FIRST TIME IN MY ENTIRE 40 YEAR LIFETIME!!!!!!

5:16 Still crying. I think I saw Landrieu with a check by her name on CNN. What a day for America. What a day for humanity. This shows even when we appear to be going backwards, we are still going forward. We are still a beacon for the world. We are an example and now we have a reason to hold our heads high as we travel outside the United States. When I came to Africa, many people told me to put a Canadian flag on my backpack. I refused. I will go as an American! And now that piece of advice is no longer necessary. We can travel the world and hold our heads high knowing that we transcended our past. That we transcended a value system that is no longer relevant. That we have taken a step closer to that ideal that is America.

5:28 John McCain just gave a gracious concession speech. But we still have Prop 8 and Al Franken to go.

5:30 Wof Blitzer just predicted that people will remember where they were when Barack Obama won the election. I was in room 505 of the Riviera Hotel in Cotonou, Benin.

5:45 To think I used to fear Karl Rove and his "Permanent Republican Majority©". Thank God the American people are smart enough to see through his Satanic designs.

5:55 People getting ready to listen to Obama's speech. I'm excited too. It's almost day here, but I still have a lot of news to watch.

5:56 Here comes President Elect Barak Hussein Obama with Michelle, Malia, and Sasha.

6:16 Obama just finished his speech. I cried again. We are entering a new period. The Rove experiment is done--ending in failure. The Obama experiment is beginning. We'll see how it ends. It's a better design. It's an inclusive design. It's a design that attempts to create a majority by earning it, not with a K Street project, not with Saudi money, not with duping the most gullible. But by lifting the American spirit. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

6:39 It's light out.