Watching the returns from Europe turns out to be a lot like watching from home: a fairly agonizing process, made all the more surreal by the late hour (it’s 2:30 am here as I write this).  All the swirls of blue and red and Wolf Blitzer carnival-barking look even more garish and insane than usual.

Florida is worrying.  An early CNN map showed the number of counties in which Bush or Kerry have won an increased percentage of the vote over 2000, and almost all were more pro-Bush.  That seems funky on its face, given the polling consensus of a narrow Kerry lead.  It’s entirely possible that Florida is simply more polarized than four years ago, and when Dade and Broward come in they’ll be more strongly pro-Kerry, but the touch-screen nightmares are disconcerting.

One big-picture note of some hope: a couple of months ago, the thought of election-day violence, either terrorism or poll-station thuggery, didn’t seem all that unreasonable.  Now it does.  That’s a good thing.

I’m finding C-SPAN’s map and the Kos diaries useful if you’re looking to busy yourself online.  For me, more caffeine… it’s gonna be a long, long night.