Whatchama Column
By Jeb Bladine

Did you ever get a really cool toy on Christmas morning, then drive everyone crazy by playing with it incessantly, right through the family dinner? A variation of that happened to me this week.

Tuesday, we unwrapped our strategy for covering the election on our News-Register website. The goal was instant information and continuous updates on voting results, candidate stories, photographs and even videos. It was a learning experience as we navigated through a new world of multi-media communications.

The surprise, for me, was a “side game” that unexpectedly became a bit of a compulsion.

It started late Tuesday night when Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts projected a win for Democrat Jeff Merkley over U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, even though Smith was leading in the vote count. I downloaded voting results compiled by The Oregonian, created a few spreadsheet formulas and was stunned by the undeniable conclusion: Merkley would win by more than 50,000 votes.

I posted that prediction as a website “crawler” headline and went home for some long-awaited rest. Instead, that new toy kept me spinning for another 24 hours.

Internet and television reports from far and wide put national attention on the Smith/Merkley race as one of four that would determine whether Democrats won a “super-majority” in the Senate. National focus continued Wednesday when no other news medium would call the race. I knew our little website would never become a national source on that story, but now I was committed.

Wednesday afternoon, doubts crept in. Every hour, I fed updated voting results into the spreadsheet and double-checked the formulas. Nothing changed, so we maintained our strong projection that Merkley would win handily, just as Hibbitts had predicted. Others waited, so “the game” became more stressful.

Late Wednesday night, the Associated Press reported that The Oregonian was projecting a win for Merkley. I suppose I snapped just a little, and my message to the Associated Press bureau chief in Seattle probably struck her as presumptuous. But the AP added the News-Register to its story on the Smith/Merkley projection; my game powered down; my obsession melted away; and Merkley did, indeed, win by more than 50,000 votes.

When I looked around, I found other interesting presents under the election tree. One of the best was a great job done by News-Register staff in online and print election coverage.

Jeb Bladine is editor and publisher of the News-Register.