woo hoo, im soo excited, i feel like i'm running for president!!

woke up extra early today to monitor the polls. earlier today (c. 8.15 ET), bush was leading in the electoral votes by quite a large majority but later on kerry caught up and at one time, the tallies were 188-197!!! what a nail-biting situation! i'm all for the republicans and i'm happy to say that now (12.47am ET) they're only THREE seats away from being the majority in the senate and only ONE (ONE!!!!) seat away from gaining a majority in the house of representatives!!

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the situation got too tense for me so i left to my grandma's house for lunch where there is no astro and my couz is hogging the comp so i won't be able to access the news! hehehe!! now the electoral votes for bush and kerry are 249-195 (yipeee!! wider margin!!) so bush needs only 24 more votes to get the 270 needed to retain his 2nd term in office!!

bush is projected to win in the midwest, south and southeast while kerry's strongholds are the pacific coast, new england states and illinois. i was sooo disappointed when kerry won all 55 electoral votes in california, esp when gov schwarzenegger is a republican!!! that narrowed the gap between the race but thankfully it is not such a close fight now. at this point of time, the state that will probably eventually determine the presidency definitely has to be ohio (and maybe the northwestern states). they have 20 electoral votes at stake (compared to most states that have only about 7 or 5 EVs). And I should add happily that Bush is leading in OH. The democrats now can't argue that the stats for OH are biased as now more than 82% of precincts are reporting so bush has a good lead there albeit pretty close (48-51%) and most of the counties in OH are leaning towards bush. only the northeastern counties are inclined to kerry.

ten states have voted for a ban on same-sex marriage, including california. the californians are also backing stem cell research funding, same stand as gov schwarzenegger who also supports gun control laws. and im baffled at how the people in NY have chosen kerry to be president!! clearly they are more concerned over the iraq situation than terrorism in their own country. :S

the reason why i support bush is because I think he handled the terrorism situation well and that his policies are taking america in the right direction. I am not pro-violence but I personally feel that the decision to bring troops into iraq was right. Yes there might be unnecessary losses of life but there would be even more if saddam and his ba’ath party were allowed to continue ruling with an iron fist. In this situation, starting a war may be wrong but in the long run everyone will see that it was the right thing to do. The fight against terrorism isn’t only for america it is for the world and i hope bush’s initiatives (incl the patriot act…) will help nab those assholes in the next 4 years and wipe their asses off the face of this planet. The Americans have made the right choice; bush’s economic policies – including tax relief, security, jobs -- have ensured a steady GDP growth. Unemployment remains at very low numbers. He has also increased funding for the very overshadowed community colleges & public schools, modernizing medicare and signing the No Child Left Behind act (which includes enabling parents to take their kids out of underperforming schools and sending them to better ones). We might not be Americans, we cannot be anti-bush solely because he decided to start a war in iraq. Only narrow-minded people think like that. The reason why most outsiders’ opinions on him are biased – we do not know in depth the policies that he has made for his country simply because we don’t live there!! How many pages can your local daily devote to US news? Only so few. We are inclined to be more concerned about what affects us (and our country) than America itself.

the fight between kerry and bush is so close that it has completely overshadowed the other presidential candidates!! one could be forgiven that kerry and bush are the only people running for presidency. ralph nader (independent) who contested in 2000 also is doing MISERABLY badly this time around, most of the time gaining only 0-1% of votes. the three other candidates (badnarik, peroutka and cobb) are no better at all.

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NOW @ 11.00AM ET

It’s official!! OK maybe not exactly official yet. Bush has won the 2004 elections!! Mathematically speaking, now that all 100% of the precincts have reported the vote count, it is impossible for Kerry to overtake bush in Ohio (even if the provisional votes are taken into consideration) so 20 EVs automatically go to bush! At one point the EVs were 254-252…I could have died from suspense and anxiety!!! But that’s a thing of the past; the fact now is that bush has won :P Yowzers!

(Another thumbs up for the republicans – senator Daschle has been ousted from the senate..mauhaa!)

I expect the final EV tally to be 286-252 (still waiting for results from new mexico, Nevada, ohio) over the 270 bush needs to retain his seat in office :D The GOP has retained all the states that voted for them in 2000 except new Hampshire that fell to the democrats this time. The big wins (large majority) included the states of al, as, nd, ok, id and I can’t remember where else. And did I state that this is the first time an American president won more than 50% of the votes since his father George Bush? Hehehe…I am very happy with the outcome of this election!!

bad day for the democrats, huh? ;-)

I have only ONE thing to declare today, in time for tomorrow:

Hehehe :) Wishing you many days of (fully clothed) happiness ahead!