Election Centrals

What's the media up to on election day? Two words: caution and entertainment. The three broadcast networks and CNN have gone to great pains to announce they are going to be extra cautious about their projections, even though they will project using the same basic kinds of data: exit polls first, then key precinct returns, augmented by interviews. They aren't going to race to be the first to project winners in states (ha ha. That'll last about an hour.) Why the caution? The "mistakes" they made in 2000 by projecting Gore winning Florida, then Bush winning it and the election. Well, they ought to know that they didn't make a mistake in projecting Gore as the winner. The exit polls told them he did because a hell of a lot of people thought they HAD VOTED FOR GORE. The Palm Beach fiasco alone in which tens of thousands of Gore votes went to Pat Buchanan or were invalidated threw the election to the capable hands of Scalia and Thomas.

So if they aren't going to project winners and compete to be the first to do so, why are people going to watch them and not the other guy? Entertainment. Lots and lots of graphics and stuff. Like NBC with their vote projection map of America on the skating rink of Democracy Plaza aka Rockerfeller Center in NYC. Watch girls in short skating skirts and guys in buttclinging spandex assist reporters falling on their asses as America votes in the most important election of our lifetime.

Okay, a few more notes before American Samizat sets up its official election headquarters, which involves moving the laptop into a room with a television set:

84% of those in CNN poll said they intend to vote.

In New Mexico, 40% have already voted. On the Navajo reservation, 10,000 new registrants, and a big push to get out the vote. In a closely contested state, they could very well be the difference.