How did you feel on election night?

[dazzleman]

This thread might be dead, but I just wanted to tell my election day story.

I woke up that morning and decided not to go to school. I mean I had followed this election since January and wasn't going to miss one second of it's climax. I ate breakfast while watching Don Imus on MSNBC. Chris Mattehews was there saying how he "should" know who is going to win by 2 or 3 in the afternoon. They were in Rockefellar Plaza I do believe.
As the morning rolled along I flipped through all the cable news channel just to get a feel of what was going down. Some pundits were talking about how nervous Bush and Rove were when they appeared on camera that morning. Then I went on the internet and saw why. I had a grin a mile long. Kerry was ahead in the exit polls in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania. He was down 1% in Colorado and North Carolina of all places. I though "hell maybe John Edwards was good for something after all."
About 4 p.m. CST I checked the latest round of exit polls and they still hadn't changed in there result. I was just full of excitement and couldn't sit still. I then went out to vote. Voted for Kerry and Blanche Lincoln and for gay marriage. I was in front of the TV the rest of the night.
The same old states were being called in the same order as they had in 2000. Then I saw the result of Florida with about 50% of the precents reporting and new something wasn't right. The night progressed with the same happening in Ohio, only a tad bit closer. Then Florida was called. Then at 11:00 P.M. NBC and Fox News called Ohio and along with Alaska which gave Bush 269. I felt like I had been punched in the face. I went to bed in disgust and disappointment.

I think my story is similar to other Democrats that day.

This time, you guys felt the backlash from the media manipulation of the exit polls earlier in the day.  Rather than create an inevitability of a Kerry victory and depress Bush support, as intended, the exit polls energized the Bush voters to get out there and make themselves heard.

The ploy of prematurely calling Florida in 2000 while the polls were still open in the most conservative part of the state depressed Bush's vote there and across the rest of the country, as many felt the election was lost.  That's what helped create the whole Florida mess.  This time, the opposite happened, and I can only say that it's exactly what the Democrats deserved.

[Schmitz in 1972]

I was pretty much nervous the whole way

Here's a few excerpts from the notes I took on election night (the times are EST:

5:02 Drudge says Kerry leading in FL and OH, I'm really worried
7:19 The light has gone out of my life [quoting TR there, amazing how as worried as I was I felt need to quote a former president]
8:02 VERY VERY BAD!!!! [referring to the states that came in at 8:00]
9:54 Problems abound
11:45 Ohio looking bad!

[WMS]

I was none too fond of either candidate...

All in all, I had mixed emotions about the race, but was mostly happy that the damn thing had ended!

Ditto!

I think it's a result of us both living in swing states, where we got plastered by political advertising...

[MissCatholic]

i was happy that my work didnt go undone in MN and WI.

i knew that i should have campigned more in Iowa. but i was worried about Wisconsin too much and i did waste a weekend in Racine County. but i was delighted that we won WI.

Disappointed that we didnt win. but we had two very bad candidates. to be completely behind one you really need your head seeing too.

i understnad why moderates voted bush, moderates voted Kerry. but i think you really thought like me that if bush won they so be it. 4 more years of polarization. 4 more years of kerry then what would we hav now

the bottom line is that Kerry won the states that he could win. we can still say to republicas you havent won wisconsin since 1984. minnesota since 1972. pa, mi are becoming harder to win for reps. so we have a much stronger base. i was pleased wit the oregon result though.

[PBrunsel]

Well I watched the Jeopardy 25th Anniversary Special at 4:00 p.m., and then watched the local news at 10:00 p.m. declared Bush was reelected once I saw the Indiana and Kentucky results.

I paid closer attention to local Iowan races that day.

[Beet]

I came back to an election party after accompanying my friend to the (rather abandoned) voting booth, realizing that I could vote twice as I had already cast my absentee ballot but that wouldn't be on the rolls yet, then getting my free burrito at taco bell, and coming back around 8 pm.

The first thing on the T.V. was a map of central Florida's I-4 corridor, with every single county painted red except for Orange county, and I think I knew then in the back of my mind all was lost. The broadcaster was saying how Bush had improved his 2000 totals across the board. Then the nationwide popular vote was 56% - 43%.  At that point I realized Bush would probably have a 51% win.

In 2000, I never expected Gore to win as he was lagging in virtually every poll, and I was just happy that he did as well as he did on election night. By a couple years later I realized it was a mistake to be happy about that, as a loss is a loss, it doesn't matter how well or badly your candidate does. You still have to live with the other candidate for 4 years, and that's what matters. So last year I allowed myself to be thoroughly depressed and get that out of my system immediately.

[Jake]

Went to school, screwed around and got written up, laughed it off, got on the computer, saw the exit polls, laughed it off best I could, hung out at school for an hour or so with a bunch of friends and a few teachers, came home, logged on, I think I played Splinter Cell for awhile, ate dinner while watching Fox News, went down to the polling booth for an hour, came back to see the 8:00 come in, sat down to watch the rest come in. I was in good spirits the whole night really.

[Akno21]

I didn't see the early exit polls, so I didn't get all excited.

I was happy about the networks delaying calls on some lean Bush states, but I didn't really think Kerry could win them. You realized it would all come down to Ohio pretty quickly, by 10:00. I didn't get emotionally up or down all night, really. I got real panicky when they were calling PA, and when it went Kerry, that was about the biggest sigh of relief I've ever felt. I knew it would all come down to Ohio, but it took 3 hours (12-3) to realize that that 150,000 vote margin wasn't getting any smaller.

It was kind of like a basketball game where you fall down by 10 early, and then it stays like that forever, and time keeps running down. Then the buzzer struck zero.

[dazzleman]

Went to school, screwed around and got written up, laughed it off, got on the computer, saw the exit polls, laughed it off best I could, hung out at school for an hour or so with a bunch of friends and a few teachers, came home, logged on, I think I played Splinter Cell for awhile, ate dinner while watching Fox News, went down to the polling booth for an hour, came back to see the 8:00 come in, sat down to watch the rest come in. I was in good spirits the whole night really.

Sounds like a good day for you, dude.

I went to work, and saw the exit poll stuff in the middle of the afternoon.  I didn't give it that much credence.  When I got home and put the TV on, the first thing I saw was Susan Estrich saying she saw almost no way Bush could win.  I thought "this woman doesn't know what she's talking about."  I stayed up well into the night watching the returns, until it was clear that Bush had won.  I was very pleased with the outcome, and I got a good laugh the next day when I heard about the telegram from Jacques Chirac congratulating Bush on his victory.  I would have paid to be a fly on the wall when Chirac was writing that telegram -- it must have killed him.

BTW Jake, what are the consequences at your school for getting "written up?"

[Lincoln Republican]

I didn't see or hear about any of the ridiculous exit polls until I started to watch the returns in the evening. 

With a big win for Bush in Florida, I was confident of a Bush re-election.

It was frustrating to see these networks, most of them at least, holding off calling Bush the winner, however.

If the situation had been reversed, and Kerry was in the position of leading in Ohio by the margin that Bush was leading, these networks would have been jumping all over themselves to declare Kerry the winner faster than you could say, "Well, at least John Edwards has a nice smile."