Election Fever--Something I Don't Get.

     So, it is Election Night in the good ol' U.S. of A.  Every two years, we go to the polls to express our dissatisfaction with certain people that represent us or keep them employed because they are doing sssuuuuuuch a good job ( like the irony?).  As a person who likes to exercise his right to vote, I always try to keep informed on the issues, generally, and if I don't know something, I like to find out.  I may feel one way or the other about something, but I want to argue from facts and see how I feel about things from there.

     This mid-term election season has seen many people say a great deal of outlandish things just to sway people to their direction.  Most of the things aren't fact based.  I know, I know, you are probably thinking, "T.O.  How is that different from any other election cycle?"  Well, this time it feels that much more considering how the Presidential elections went.  And let's be completely honest.  Many people did not want to see a black man as President.  Yeah, I said it because-it's-true.  I am O.K. with this also.  They don't like the party that helped him get elected.  I get that, too.  But the lengths that some are going to, just to retake/reclaim/restore what they feel America should be, bother me.  Especially since I don't recall any of this talk being around when we had eight years of the other guy and twelve years of the Republican/conservatives controlling the Congress, for the most part. And before you start throwing stones, I am not calling anyone racist.  I saying how it looks.  Similar to the fact of the image of the inner city welfare

     The other thing that I don't get is this:  Why are national networks calling races before the polls are closed?  I get it, we always want to project winners and know things for certain.  But, did we not learn anything from the Bush/Gore debacle, no matter who you voted for?  I mean, they are proclaiming that a political party has won such-and-such with only ten percent of the precincts reporting and the polls across the country are not even closed yet.  I am currently taking a Statistics class and one thing I have learned is that this early sampling is very flawed.  The message you are also sending to those who have not voted yet, who may be wanting to vote, is that their vote doesn't count, since the thing has already been decided (not really).  To follow on that, I am really bothered by the fact that with only 1,000 out of over 8,000 precincts reporting, so far, the papers and news organizations are declaring a winner.  With only 10% reporting and the race at 55%-45% for the incumbent.

     This seems very un-American to me.