Wow. That was a really stupid title for the post.

Anyway, all I really wanted to say is that I think weather could play a key role in the Tennessee Senate election today. For those who aren’t familiar with Tennessee geography and/or politics, the state is divided into three “Grand Divisions,” West, Middle, and East. West Tennessee tends to trend more liberal (or traditional agrarian Democrat), largely due to the One Million or so folks in the greater Memphis area, Middle Tennessee tends to be somewhat mixed, though with the large metropolitan Nashville area, it probably leans middle left. East Tennessee, with few exceptions, is quite conservative.

There’s a large expanse between Memphis in the extreme southwestern corner of the state all the way to Bristol in the extreme northeast corner (basically 500 miles), so needless to say the weather can be quite varied.

Today was certainly no exception. West Tennessee and most of Middle Tennessee had extremely nice conditions, with no rain and moderate temps. However, here in East Tennessee, it has just been generally yucky all day. Rain, dark, bleak conditions persisted throughout the entire area.

Does weather help or hinder a particular party or candidate? I don’t know if my local polling place is any bellweather for the area, but at 6:00, there was a relatively long line to sign in, and also one to actually get to the new machines.

Polls are just in the process of closing here in Tennessee (waiting for those in line by 8pm to finish), and there’s no news results yet. I’ll give you an update when I get the first set of reasonable numbers.