From One Extreme to the Other

Getting sick of the news anchors yet? After prematurely calling states such as Florida for Gore in 2000, only to have to change that later, the networks are going out of their way not to call anything for anybody tonight. The only exceptions are in the most obvious places.

It gets to be absurd at times. If Bush is ahead by 15 points and more than a third of the ballots are counted, in most cases it's going to be time to call it for him. The exceptions would be states like Ohio and Florida, where it all boils down to where the ballots counted so far are coming from. I certainly would not try to call either for Bush or Kerry yet.

Have the antacid at the ready tonight.