Congratulations, Mister Ted Strickland — you are now the Governator of Ohio! Strickland seems to have won 60% of the vote, versus Blackwell’s puny 37%. These statistics are only projections, and may change slightly. The point, however, remains, that a majority of Ohioans — or at least those with the intelligence to vote — have removed their collective heads from their asses. Gods only hope that they had enough sense, an urge for change, to kick out DeWine. Guess we’ll know later tonight.

I don’t know about you all, but my polling place was packed. I meant to go early this morning before work, around 6:30 . . . a notion I remembered halfway to Huber Heights. So instead I went at about 5:45 pm, and had to wait in line for twenty minutes. It wasn’t too bad; I made small talk with a hot goth girl and watched in amazement as some guy bitched that he “didn’t know he had to have his ID to vote.” I mean, really. It’s only been publicized just about everywhere.

All said, it was nice to see a lot of people out voting, especially during a midterm election, when turnout is historically less than during a Presidential election year. I’ll be curious to see what the turnout was like compared with the shitty 2002 election. My thoughts then were a little bleak. I’m considerably more upbeat about the results this time around.

UPDATED 9:56 PM: Oooh! It looks like Sherrod Brown beat out Mike DeWine for Senator, 56% to 44%. That’s fucking awesome. Democrat candidates have apparently also won two other Senate races, in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Three more, and the Democrats will have a majority in the U.S. Senate for the first time in 12 years. Now that’s something to be excited about.

JAB