Romney Wins!

How did we ever manage to conduct presidential elections before TV took over? Last night I was watching the returns when the channel (not NBC) suddenly announced "NBC has declared Obama the winner in Ohio." The picture immediately switched to cheering crowds in Chicago and that was it. Everyone everywhere seemed to treat that as the official outcome.

The whole scene reminded me of the famous picture of Harry Truman holding up a front page headline announcing "Dewey Wins!" What if NBC had been wrong? What a terrible responsibility it must be to have to decide when the evidence--a partial count of the votes filtered through analysis of exit polls and projections from dozens of counties--becomes strong enough to pick a winner. NBC turned out to be right this time. I guess that means we can all relax.

Perhaps it is time to dispense with this whole voting thing. I suspect that if we had analyzed all the tweets about the campaigns we could have announced the winner before voting ever started. After all, in presidential elections our votes don't directly decide anything anyway. That honor goes to the Electoral College, a bunch of people whose names did not even appear on the ballot. I suppose it is still possible that the Electoral College could overturn the NBC decision but I doubt that will happen.

I was also impressed by how well the voters were able to ignore the billions of dollars of ads that were showered upon them and the grim efforts of some officials to block people from actually voting. I worked my fingers to the bone clicking to avoid those ads but it was worth the effort. It was also worth the effort to vote early (and often, as they used to say in Chicago) and to live in a state that allowed plenty of time for early voting.

Thank God I didn't retire to Florida! I hear the Floridians may vote to rejoin the United States if they can get their polls up an running. Perhaps they can join us along with Puerto Rico, whose citizens narrowly opted for American statehood in a referendum yesterday. I hope the Puerto Ricans don't ask for a recount.