election night, from Chicago/New York

9 pm Tuesday 4th, live from New York
I was at a conference in Chicago and today travelled from Chicago to New York.
Ensconced in cosy apartment on the swank upper West side, Manhattan, watching blanket election coverage as the votes roll in, and laughing at the media's irrepressible need to be AHEAD of the news... In spite of their gruesome blunder in 2004, when at this stage of the voting were calling the election for Kerry... and we all know who won then! They can't stop themselves - NBC one of the worst offenders, still calling 'results' from notoriously unreliable exit polling, taken from interviews with people as they exit the polling booths.
Coming through the States via Los Angeles, last week, it was impossible to ignore the mood of anticipation, undercut by fear and trepidation. Could it be possible that this well-educated, calm, 'mixed race' candidate, with the knack of inspiring people to hope for change, could actually displace the monstrous Cheney/Bush push.
We all watched in dismay as the idiot leaders squandered the sympathy and goodwill flowing towards the US after September 11, and regressed the most powerful gorilla in the tribe into big grunt warrior chest beating idiocy. Crikey! what a mess they have plunged us all into.
I sometimes wonder if this is what it was like when homo sapiens began to emerge as a new evolutionary force... They must have had to share the planet with whatever preceded them; a long period of overlap, no? Was it: cro-Magnon man??? My paleoanthropology is not a strong point. Homo sapiens had to outsmart the drongoes, even while it had to share food and territory. Do you think we can evolve our way into a new way of being in the world?