This 'n That

Here's an excerpt from the Tennessean (Nashville daily newspaper)

To the surprise of nobody who’d been following state tracking polls, McCain carried Tennessee — and carried it so decisively that the networks were coloring the state red on their maps minutes after the polls closed. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, McCain carried the state with 57 percent of the vote to Obama's 42 percent — an even wider margin than the 12-point lead he enjoyed in most statewide polls.

Obama carried just six of Tennessee's 95 counties.

While the Democrats were making historic gains in other traditionally Republican states, Tennessee, if anything, was getting redder. Obama lost the state by a wider margin than John Kerry's decisive 56 percent to 42 percent defeat in 2004.

Obama did win a comfortable majority in Nashville. As of deadline, Shelby County had not released any results, but he was expected to do equally well with Memphis voters.

“I can’t vote for anybody as old as my grandfather,” said Brian Sucher, 28, a restaurant manager from Nashville. “He says ‘I’m experienced,’ but he didn’t make an experienced decision on the vice president he chose. His comment ‘I know where Bin Laden is’ is something he should have told Bush in the first place.”

Most observers agreed the main reason Obama didn’t do well in Tennessee was that he didn’t really try. The campaign invested few resources in the state, instead relying on enthusiastic local volunteers, and the only time the candidate set foot in Tennessee in the past year was to participate in the Belmont presidential debate.

“Tennessee is a red state, there’s a lot of Republican support here,” said Vanderbilt political scientist John Geer. “Frankly, that could have been changed if the Obama campaign had invested in this state. It became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

This might be true, but they probably made an informed decision based on our having only 11 electoral votes and past performances in elections. Please let's do all we can to contact our legislators to abolish the electoral votes and to go by the popular vote. I'd like for my vote to count and for them to campaign all over the country.

Have I mentioned enough times that I have blue state envy? It would be great to live surrounded by people who vote the way I do instead of so many stubbornly ignorant dumbasses. My friends and family help each other, but it's beyond frustrating. Maybe we can move en masse where the weather is good. OK?