Election Return Live Blog

Well, folks, hang on to your butts.

Everybody says that Florida will tell the tale. If Clinton hangs on to Florida, Trump is probably shut out, the bobbleheads say.

Indiana and Kentucky already called for Trump. Clinton takes Vermont.

There was a shooting near a polling place in California. No indication the shooting was related to the election.

Rudy Giuliani is on MSNBC saying that Clinton got away with multiple crimes, and Chris Matthews isn’t challenging him to be specific.

(7:30) West Virginia called for Trump. No surprises so far.

Steve Kornacki tells us that Trump is doing better with non-college-educated whites than Romney did four years ago.

South Carolina called for Trump; again, no surprise.

(8:00) Okay, they are calling a bunch of states. Let’s see if I can get it straight.

States just called for Clinton: Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia.

Tammy Duckworth will be a Senator from Illinois!

Trump picks up Tennessee, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

Marco Rubio re-elected in Florida. Damn.

Florida — 59 percent of precincts reporting, and it’s dead even.

Evan Bayh, centrist Dem Senate candidate, loses in Indiana, MSNBC says.

(8:30) Arkansas called for Trump.

Returns seem awfully slow this year.

New projections — Clinton wins New York. Trump wins North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Clinton wins Connecticut.

Florida — lots of votes to be counted in Broward County yet.

(9:30) Trump wins Louisiana.

This is making me crazy.

Fox News has called New Mexico for Clinton, I understand.

(10:00) Trump wins Montana.

Missouri called for Trump.

The fivethirtyeight crew is saying that Republicans probably will keep the Senate.

NBC is calling Ohio for Trump.

Clinton is pulling ahead in Virginia.

Clinton wins Colorado.

Virginia called for Clinton, finally.

Florida called for Trump.

Clinton wins California.

People, this is not looking good. Clinton has to win some states in which she’s behind right now to get to 270. And I doubt she can do it.  I think she’s going to fall short.  Assuming she takes all of the states she’s currently leading, she’s going to be short. She’ll need Michigan — possible, but she’s behind right now — and one other state with at least 5 electoral votes. And I don’t know what state that would be.

So, folks, it looks like we’ll lose this one.

If there’s a possible silver lining here, it is that it’s going to shake up the Democratic Party.

(1:45 am) Some news outlets are officially calling the race for Trump, sorry.

32 thoughts on “Election Return Live Blog

  1. I voted! And then I emailed Hillary to tell her I won’t vote for again if she escalates in Syria.

  2. I’m with you JustMe. The map looks way too red. And yet the polls are still a couple hours away from closing on the west coast. It’s going to be close….

  3. I am glad I am 71 and going back to my movies. America has become a country too stupid for its own good.

  4. If there’s a possible silver lining here, it is that it’s going to shake up the Democratic Party.

    That’s like saying the meteor is going to shake up the ecosystem.

    I mean, I believe that needs to happen too, but not at the price that’s about the exacted.

  5. In the town where I grew up there were two brothers who were identical twins. They not only looked exactly alike, they also thought alike. One time they robbed a gas station, and when the police asked the attendant at the station for a description of the culprits all he had to say was that they were identical twins. It didn’t take the police long to figure out who they were looking for and make an arrest.
    Another time they stole a car and wrecked it in a high speed crash. One of the brothers had his arm mangled and made useless as a result of that crash. His arm would just hang limp from his shoulder and it was in constant pain from nerve damage.
    After trying to live with the pain he finally had enough of it. So he got drunk and took a sawed off shotgun and just blew off his arm thinking it would force the removal of his arm…something the doctors were unwilling to do because it wasn’t a medical necessity up until that point..
    I tell that story because within that story is an analogous point in explaining Trump’s success in this election. Evidently people are so fed up with things in Washington that they are willing to blow up the system without any regard for what might follow if their desires for forced change comes to pass. For me it’s a sad state of affairs. I’m not happy about a lot of things in our governmental system as thing stand now, but to put your trust in a person of Trump’s character is a big, big mistake. I find it extremely difficult to understand how so many people can be so naive or in such pain to put their hopes in someone like Trump.
    Blessed are the unexpecting for they shall not be disappointed.

  6. Remember all the analysis that the Republican party couldn’t survive Trump. That’s all been turned upside down.

    Will the know-nothing wing become stronger? What happens when they refuse to honor debts?

  7. Comey will be fired. Dems have no fucks left to give on that horse. Let Trump name “racist demon number 12” to the post. It can’t possibly be worse, and may remove the media fig leaf of “integrity” surrounding the post.

    The main story of this campaign is the media wanted the Clinton Scalp, and got their Clinton Scalp, to the exclusion of all else.

    Now we have a Manchurian candidate for President, and the markets are already tanking. Hang on to your butts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

  8. Well a dick waving jerk is always better than a qualified woman, So girls just remember you are not equal because white male ego is always more important than good management. This is just the beginning of bad management .The market had to be electronically stopped after eight hundred pt drop. Welcome to the depression. Putin has already called to congratulate the orange primate.

  9. Did Trump just game the system, with help from Russian friends? If he doesn’t “Make America Great Again”, then the people who supported him cannot ever be allowed to live this down.

  10. I know that the “Don Juan” books by Carlos Castaneda were dodgy, but, as I’ve written before, Don Juan’s concept of “stopping the world” has always seemed like a valuable insight. It describes the state a lot of us are in right about now, the state of “everything you know is wrong.” Something inconceivable has happened and it seems that everything is in question.

    For the moment, it is better for my mental health to put my mind elsewhere until I find the equilibrium to imitate a rational thought process. It’s too easy to summon some horrific images of what the future holds, but “tomorrow will have trouble enough of its own.” We’ll just have to brace ourselves and go on the best we can.

    At least the Republicans have made talk of secession acceptable again.

    Sorry. Keep your chins up friends.

  11. I am fucked!
    You an fucked!!
    WE ALL AM FUCKED!!!

    Coming soon, after an economic meltdown:
    MORON’S REMORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I Do NOt Like Red t-RUMP and SPAM!!!

    I am completely…
    Just completely…

    Who the fuck will care what any of us are………………?

  12. Its a stunning loss but in a way I’m not surprised.

    I don’t mean to rain on any parades here but Clinton was not the best candidate the democrats could have put forward, right or wrong, for a variety of obvious reasons. Politics to a large extent is marketing. You identify a need, develop a product to meet it, position and sell it. As crazy as the GOP primary was, in letting the process run its course, they did exactly that. Trump was truly damaged goods, but for his audience, he was perfect. And he sold it.

    In pre-ordaining a candidate years in advance, and putting their thumb on the scale in the primary process, the dems ignored demand, developed a product that didn’t meet the need and then assumed it would sell itself.

    Now its the dems time to do an autopsy. They can’t think of this as an aberration or one off. There were reasons this happened, preventable ones. Dems have to learn from it and do better.

  13. And now, begins the “Fun” part!

    In the next few months, (mostly white male) peole like me, will wonder WTF happened to their SS, SSDI, SSSB, Medicare, Medicaif, Obamamacare, went!

    Well, I suspect only your PROCTOLOGIST

    FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  14. Cue final scene from Planet of the Apes.

    The biggest con in American history just completed. And you were there.

    And, likely, there was massive cheating, but we will never know.

    Now the other 7 billion will pay for a few angry white men (so, nothing much has changed).

    Sigh.

  15. Here is the text of my next quadrennial letter to the Presidential candidates. In a rational reversal of convention, I send my congratulations to the losers, and my condolences to the winner.

    **************

    To:
    Donald Trump
    Hillary Clinton
    Gary Johnson
    Jill Stein

    Re:
    Congratulations and condolences

    Dear Former Candidates:

    Now that the election results are in, and we know which one of you won the election, and which ones lost, I send you a letter of congratulations and condolences. Unlike the usual practice, I send my congratulations to the losers and my condolences to the winner.

    First, the major party loser. Congratulations, Hillary Clinton; you lost. It was a close call for a while, but you dodged it. We considered you carefully, and in the end chose not to inflict the Presidency upon you, or you upon it. Good for you, and good for it! Now please go away and be quiet before we change our minds and make you President after all.

    A shout-out now for the minor-party losers; Gary Johnson of the Libertarians, Jill Stein of the Green Party, and many others. Good news; you all lost! None of you have to be President!

    Some words now to the one leaving office; Barack Obama. In my previous letter to you I told you to follow the path of least resistance, and to manage the decline of American empire. You have obeyed these orders to the letter. Against my advice you attempted some reforms; and as I predicted, this met resistance.

    Thank you for feeding bin Laden to the fish. And thanks for Obamacare. And for stopping a Depression. And for the judges. And for stealing so many Republican ideas that they have none left. And much else. All in all you have done amazingly well, for a President. That’s because you’re a nice man, but you’re also an Ice man. You are now released from the worst job in the world. Dis-missed!

    Now for the winner, Donald Trump. Greetings! It is my duty to inform you that you are now President-Elect of the United States of America. My deepest condolences. Your new job is stressful; it’s hazardous; it’ll force you to do hideous deeds; it’ll age you fast; and worst of all, it’s a dead end. Any job after this will be a demotion. I repeat: my condolences.

    The Presidency is so toxic that winning it won’t just harm you; it’ll harm your closest constituents. But lucky for you, self-harm is your constituency.
    The awful truth is, you’re a slave. All Presidents are slaves; “public servant” is a euphemism. I think that the Presidency should be a civic obligation imposed at random, then heavily vetted, like jury duty or the draft; the kind of job that people run from rather than for.

    As is, it’s a volunteer post. That’s absurd, and the joke’s on you. You sought the booby prize, and you won. You have it, and it has you. I question your judgment, but I cannot fault your courage. Good luck!

    To your predecessor I recommended managing imperial decline; but to you I recommend accelerating imperial decline. Go with the flow, down the drain. That’s what you’ll do anyhow, like it or not, so here I am, telling you to do it.

    Above all, be yourself. In your case, that means: be the voice of unreason. So rule with a whim of iron! Run the government like the corporations that you bankrupted! Wage wars where victory means a bigger and better war! Break the banks, crash the markets, poison the drinking water, comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted! Make America a laughingstock again! Lose huge!

    I’m against all that; but you’re for it, and you’ll do it whether or not I tell you to. So that’s why I’m telling you to. Later I’ll say that you obeyed me.

  16. We’ll see how well it ‘worked out for them.’

    Enemies lists backed by the power of the Presidency is what I foresee.

    Of course, whether he delivers or not, there will be massive buyer’s remorse and enough schadenfreude to go around for all who Trumped.

    We’ll remember Nixon, Reagan, and Bush with fondness before this is through.

  17. The only consolation we in California have is that recreational pot is now legal (passed 56% to 44%), and it’s going to take a helluva lot of dope to get through the next few years.

    Great cover of Bob Dylan’s Everybody Must Get Stoned

  18. “Why not? I thought.  I was, after all, a charter member of the Presidential Task Force.  It was time to call in some chips.  The woman had her own reasons, but so what?  We were patriots and I had a fast car.

    Suddenly a fight broke out in the doorway.  The tall blond man had the manager in a headlock and was screaming in German. 

    We fled, but there was another fight in the street.  A gang of skinheads had attacked some elderly Jews and was trying to shave their heads.  Others were painting swastikas on parked cars.

    The woman was dragged away by a stranger.  I tried to help her but I was clubbed on the head and fell unconscious.”

    Hunter S. Thompson Nov. 1990 The German Decade

  19. Be clear what you’re feeling inside before you start thrashing around with analyses or blaming people. You’re suffering, we’re all suffering. I’ll bet that a lot of Trump voters are euphoric at the moment, but that will pass and the suffering they felt when they cast their ballots–whatever it was about: unemployment, the opioid addicted sibling, the feeling that society didn’t give a damn about them–is going to come roaring back. For me, it all feels like a death in the family, but in this case the death was a mass suicide.

  20. I am in a state of shock but I guess I will recover.
    Trump has said he loves to win and now he has won the ultimate prize (or so I’m told). What is in it for him and how long will it take him to get bored? And what will he do then? To some people, he is a messianic figure. He has said he will do unbelievable things and only he can do them. Well, we will see. I’m going back to bed.

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