Next Tuesday will be for me (and tens of thousands of others) the first even-year election night as a Kossack, so forgive me if a system is already in place for what I'm about to propose.
Like many of you, I'll be alternating between national results coverage, a local TV station and of course, Daily Kos all night Tuesday and well into Wednesday. I can only imagine the potential blizzard of diaries with titles like:
Webb Up By 6 With 2% Reporting!
BREAKING: Ford and Corker neck and neck as polls close!
McCaskill Leads in First Returns!
I implore you to resist the temptation. Obviously, these diaries will A) be outdated the minute they're posted, and B) scroll off doubly-quick in a barrage of posts. So I'd like to offer a concentrated, consolidated approach to the way we communicate with each other on Election Night.
We can assume (I think) that our fabulous front-pagers will spotlight the most vital of national races. So what becomes of the second/third-tier races and the 6,119 state House and Senate contests that are also important to Dems on election night?
I envision 7 regionally-concentrated diaries, divided according to time zones and posted by volunteers (like you) when the polls are generally closed in each region. Diaries might be titled something like this:
Results Live Blogging: ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY
Results Live Blogging: PA, NJ, DE, MD, OH, IN, MI
Results Live Blogging: VA, WV, KY, NC, SC, GA, FL
The above, for the most part, are all eastern time zone. These can be posted at 8pm Eastern, as results start to become available.
Results Live Blogging: ND, SD, MN, WI, NE, IA, IL
Results Live Blogging: KS, MO, TN, OK, AR, MS, AL, TX, LA
These are central time zone, and can be posted at 8pm Central.
Results Live Blogging: MT, ID, WY, UT, CO, AZ, NM
These are mountain time zone, for posting at 8pm Mountain.
Results Live Blogging: WA, OR, NV, CA, AK, HI
These are pacific time zone and later, and should be posted at 8pm Pacific.
So, if I want to report ongoing results in Wisconsin's marriage amendment referendum, I can do that without taking up a diary spot. If someone is watching TX-22, for instance, an open thread live blog will be there to report those results.
As each diary fills up (say 250-300 comments), we can unrecommend them and start anew.
All we need is a volunteer for each of the 7 original live blogs. Since I'm in Wisconsin, I'll start us out with that diary (Results Live Blogging: ND, SD, MN, WI, NE, IA, IL).
Take the poll, add your ideas or volunteer to start a live blog in the comments.