Bright lights shining upwards obscures the stars...

You're responding awfully strongly to an idle annoyance. I think that the point jbailey was trying to make is that the American media over-sensasionalises *everything*, just to make ratings. Seriously, using the word "battleground" to apply to an election race is just hyperbole. Maybe CNN is trying to get people to vote by making it exciting? Maybe the American public is too jaded to pay attention to anything that doesn't seem like a disaster, I don't know. All I know is that, as a Canadian, we have a much higher voter turnout and less "pow", "slash", "kablaam" style reporting than you guys do here.