In Which I Smile, Rub My Palms Together and Say "Exxxxxcellent!"

My local AM talk station is dominated by the likes of Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, and Michael Medved (The call letters? WIND, no lie). Much of my enthusiasm for an Obama victory tomorrow - okay, most of it; maybe all of it - has to do with the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth that will no doubt take place in right-wing noise machine circles. What can I say? The misfortunes and sorrows of others are amusing to me.

I'm pretty equal opportunity about it, too. When I lived in Madison, WI I took great pleasure in the histrionics that greeted the second Bush term. Stumbling into my office the day after the election, sleep-deprived and hung over, I was snapped back into lucidity when I noticed despondent liberals actually crying and hugging each other in public. "Its okay," one nearby sad sack said to another. "You did everything you could." I chuckled to myself as I walked away, knowing full well I that I was in for a four-year treat.

This NYT report from the other day brought this scene back to life for me.

Certainly, national and swing state polls suggest that Democrats might allow themselves a deep breath or two. But liberals are not inclined to relax, given the circumstances of their last two defeats. Hanging chad, the Supreme Court decisions, and Florida and Ohio’s electoral problems: it is a lifetime of agita to staunch Democrats. The prospect of success now comes scented with dread.

But you haven't even lost the election yet! Are you guys so determined to provide me with sadistic glee that you won't even wait for the results?

To walk on Broadway, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is to feel their pain. “Oh, God, I’m optimistic, but I can’t look at the polls,” said Patricia Kuhlman, 54, nervously tapping her Obama/Biden ’08 button. “I’m a PBS/NPR kind of person, and, O.K., I do look at some polls.”

Ms. Kuhlman shakes her head and says, “If he doesn’t get this, I’ll be crying so hard.”

I'd like to think that, somewhere, Hugh Hewitt is saying the same thing.