By the by, my slog moniker “Chicago Fan” refers to politics as well as sports, and when I got done teaching tonight and logged on to see that the results from Lake County Indiana, an Obama stronghold, hadn’t come in yet, it was deja vu all over again.

Back in the bad old days of ballot-box stuffing and vote stealing, it was common practice for political bosses to withhold results from precincts or larger areas that they knew would go overwhelmingly their way. They wanted to know exactly how much over they needed to whelm. Hence, in the 1960 Presidential election, Kennedy won Illinois by a mere 10,000 votes, and Cook County reported very late in the process, after Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Democratic bosses could see how many votes they would need. The legends of stealing the election are not wholly accurate, and it wasn’t just Kennedy they were concerned about: they were actually more interested in preventing Ben Adamowski, a Dem turned Republican, from winning the Cook County State’s Attorney race, since that would give the R’s power to investigate Democrats.

Now, I’m not accusing the good folks of Lake County Indiana with anything; but one benefit of your stronghold reporting last is that your opponent might do something dumb, like declare victory, and then lose a few hours later. “Dewey Defeats Truman” anyone?