Worth staying up for: It is worth it to watch James Carville sounding humble. Amazing. David Gergen is saying that young people may become cynical because they worked so hard for Kerry. Yet, earlier NBC reported that only 17% of 18-29 year olds showed up to the polls. Also, I predict that those young voters split their votes fairly eveningly. So, I guess that means that 8.5% of those young people will be cynical…but I’m just guessing, as I’m a blogger and it has been proven today that bloggers should not play with statistics.

Okay, I’ll call Ohio now & the election - go to bed: This is so great. The networks are so afraid to call the election, even I can beat them. It’s over. Ohio is going to Bush. The only question now is if he’ll hit my prediction of 296 electoral votes or go higher. I’ll still stand by my prediction. Which no matter what, will be closer than Zogby, who was predicting at 5 p.m., that Kerry would win with 311 electoral votes.

Update: How Zogby blew it from Randy Holloway (via instapundit.com).

Update II: Fox has called Ohio for Bush at 11:40 CST.

Huh? Peter Jennings just referred to the “Reagan Headquarters” in Washington.

Update: Brit Hume just said Kerry is playing a tough game of catch up to win, but it sounded like “ketchup.”

I’ll call it if no one else will: The networks are so snake bitten by the 2000 election, they are afraid to call it. With 95% of the precincts in, Bush has 52% of the votes vs. 47% for Kerry. So, I’ll call it, dammit. Florida goes to Bush according to the rexblog decision desk.

Update: 20 minutes after the rexblog decision desk calls it, ABC follows my lead.

Best map: C-SPAN.org (which apparently — from the URL — is being served up from the AP.)

Jeff Jarvis quoted on CNN: Aaron Brown just quoted Jeff Jarvis’ buzzmachine.com. I’m on an IM with several folks on the Hammock Publishing staff who are covering the election for a client of ours. I’m watching another station and one of my IMing partners said, “Hey, your friend Jeff Jarvis is being quoted by Aaron Brown.”

Brown was quoting Jeff’s election pledge, which, by the way, I agree with: basically, tomorrow it’s over and let’s get back to treating each other with some civility and unity.

Did he just drop a glass of wine?

Exit polls suck: Okay, bloggers. The leaking of exit poll numbers early in the day mean nothing. Can we agree on that in the future? Can we agree that Jack Shafer and Wonkette and Drudge were doing a disservice to us all by leaking rumors of flawed exit polling.

Back later: I’m going to take a couple hours to let reality catch up with punditry.

The sky is falling, no, wait: I love blogs and all, but I’ve ranted for years about how reporters should never be trusted with numbers. I’m about to decide non-technical bloggers may be even worse when it comes to interpreting numbers. Even Wonkette, the former Ph.D. student, is spewing out rumored numbers that are now raging around the blogosphere as if they’re fact. It’s meme-gone-wild. Do these exit polls include early voters? Have we not forgotten what the early exit polls revealed in 2000? Relax. Have a beer. Rumors of exit polls without any context or understanding of the methodology is like crack cocaine in the hands of bloggers (and reporters as well, for that matter).

Internet death: “Service Unavailable” is the message I get when trying to access Slate.com. I think I’ll shut off my computer until about 8 p.m. tonight and skip the idiocy of the next three hours.

Update: via instapundit.com, the blog 601AM is reporting they are under a denial of service attack.

How to watch the results tonight: The WSJ’s John Fund (who, coincidentally predicts the electoral outcome like me: Bush, 296; Kerry, 242) has a great hour-by-hour guide for how to follow tonight’s election returns.

Doc votes and predicts: Quote from Doc Searls: “I’m voting Kerry, but betting Bush, for what it’s worth.” Gee. I’ve heard that more than once today.

Don’t be stupid: Drudge posts a headline, not a story, but a headline, that says Kerry insiders are comforted by early exit polls and the stock market drops 70 points. Geez. What idiots.

Tomorrow is another day: Yesterday, in our company’s regular Monday-morning meeting, I reiterated to everyone my desire for them not to feel uncomfortable for supporting a candidate other than the one I vote for — I fear I may be in a minority, but we haven’t done any official polling. Our staff is blessed with extremely well-informed, thoughtful (in all meanings of the word) individuals. We’ve engaged in some pretty heated debates over the past few months and only had to mandate a truce once. But our disagreements have been agreeable and good-natured. And so, I promise not to gloat tomorrow when Bush wins couldn’t agree more with what Michael Totten writing on Instapundit has to say on this topic today:

ELECTION DAY REMINDERS (from Instapundit.com): Let’s get a couple of things out of the way before today’s votes are counted.

You have the right to vote. You do not have the right to see the man of your choice in the White House.

If George W. Bush wins the election, the world will still spin on its axis. Canada will not grant you asylum. If John Kerry wins the election, America will still be America. Australia will not grant you asylum.

People who vote for the other guy aren’t stupid, brainwashed, or evil. They are your friends and family. Someone you love will almost certainly cancel your vote. (My wife cancels out mine.)

If, by some chance, everyone you know votes for the loser it won’t mean the election was stolen. It will only show that you live in a bubble.

If this thing is close (the victor could easily win by 0.1 percent) try not to read too much into it. We’ll still be closely divided.

If the election doesn’t go your way, don’t pop off as though America were Guatemala under the generals. You’ll get lots of attention, but it won’t be the kind you want. People will laugh, not near you but at you.

Amen, brother.

Magazine “execs” prefer Kerry according to statistics-challenged report: Buried in this minonline.com story about the Bill Clinton appearance at last week’s American Magazine Conference is this sentence:

…(an) AMC poll of attendees…found 63% in support of John Kerry. (The) percentage is surprising, because magazine ceos and publishers, who dominate the conference, are typically seen as conservative.

Again, yet another example how number-stories confound reporters. CEOs and publishers attend the AMC gathering, but was the poll limited to them, or were editors, vendors MPA staffers and others allowed to participate? Sure such a poll can be surprising to a reporter. But, as we all know, anything dealing with statistics can often be surprising to a reporter.

(via: iwantmedia.com)