The unassuming location you see above is the Memorial Student Center, located in the middle of Marshall University, located in the middle of Huntington, located in the slightly-left-of-middle of West Virginia. The event taking place in the following photos was a bipartisan election results party -- in the image above, the Republicans are seated on the left, where they gleaned their information from Fox News. Democrats, on the right, viewed MSNBC.

Some might call this volatile arrangement a recipe for conflict -- though despite a few harmless jeers fired from one group to another (usually around the projection of battleground states), the mood in the room was relatively amiable.

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With a little under an hour remaining until the polls close in West Virginia, the Democratic Headquarters located on 7th Avenue in Huntington remains full of phone bankers and Obama well-wishers. Though current exit polls show Sen. McCain is currently leading the state by as much as 10 percent, the mood at the Democratic HQ remains unflinchingly optimistic.

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Well, I’ve done it. I’ve made one of the most important decisions of my lifetime. I’ve chosen the candidate that I feel is best suited to lead my country (not to mention my state, city, and local park). I’ve fulfilled my all-important civic duty. Let me tell you, I haven’t felt this good about myself since I saved that Los Angeles metro bus from exploding by driving it at 50 mph for a few hours. (Oh, you didn’t know Speed was a historical bio-pic? That’s odd.)

After stopping by my designated polling place at 8 a.m. to check in wi...

A bit of history on the U.S. electoral process (which may prove unnecessary for our more historically-inclined readers): The first televised debate in America took place in Chicago in 1960. The two involved parties, Democratic candidate John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, had both run tireless campaigns, and to this point, had remained incredibly close in the polls. The result of the election which was to take place that year was beyond the prowess of the era’s political prognosticators.

Ninety minutes, a cadre of queries, and innumerable beads of sweat later, Sen. Kennedy had risen above the stalemate. He would become the thirty-fifth president of the United States of America, a position he would serve until his assassination two years later.

In order for this particular entry into this humble political blog to make any sense, you really need to watch the above video.

For the YouTube-a-phobes amongst us, allow me to summarize – during a recent campaign stop in Maumee, OH, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden was flagged down by a young woman who is a campaigner for 1Sky, an environmentalist group whose main focus is to combat global warming. The unnamed young woman asked Biden about the Obama campaign’s feelings towards coal processing in Ohio, considering wind and solar energy plants are already flourishing in the state.

Biden’s off-the-cuff response was alarming to many supporters of the coal industry across the tri-state.

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For those who have found it difficult to follow the recent economic pseudo-collapse (such, admittedly, as myself), allow me to briefly sum things up in a succinct and simple manner:

The U.S. banking industry exploded.

It started Sunday night, with high-profile banking (and various other financial services) firm Lehman Brothers filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, marking the single largest (and possibly most terrifying) bankruptcy filing in American history.

I think it’s safe to say that this is the most exciting election of our generation thus far. I don’t know anyone who would disagree with that – while some political analysts might consider the popularity of the 2008 presidential race an abomination, a bastardization of the typically solemn democratic process, I can’t really see the downside when more young people are getting involved on both sides as fervently as they are. In fact, one of the reasons that I applied for this project was the knowledge that this election would be as historic as it already has proven to be.

Unfortunately, the dread which I’ve described in previous posts that the contest will not be quite so contested...

Piled into my silver Toyota Matrix, me and two of my suavest pals contemplated Danny Ocean. Crawling through traffic towards Charleston, the three of us were dressed to the nines – well, they were, anyhow. My one suit and tie were nowhere to be found in my closet; I had to settle for a nice pair of jeans and a gray suit jacket, an ensemble classy enough to make me feel confident in saying I was dressed at least to the sevens – perhaps to the seven and a halfs.

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This past week saw the beginning stages of what could be a knock-down, drag-out fight between presidential contenders Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate, and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate. What had been a clean, respectful election turned nasty when McCain released a new ad comparing the Illinois Senator’s popularity and support to a media fascination with a teen pop star. Not only did this understandably upset Obama, but it also inadvertently put the kibosh on the heretofore unannounced write-in campaign that Britney Spears was hoping to run.

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I could entirely understand why many West Virginians would feel somewhat disheartened about their part in the 2008 presidential election.

Not that I’m demeaning every person’s role as a valuable cog in the political machine, nor would I ever think about passing up on exercising my right to vote – but the predictions made by political prognosticators concerning West Virginia’s voting habits might make a young voter feel somewhat insignificant, as though their state’s electoral support for a certain candidate was a foregone conclusion.

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