On election night 2012 I was in DC doing the rounds of various media outlets. At one stop I found myself in a small cramped office of foreign journalists reporting to countries all over Europe and Asia, some as far as Korea.

The conversations in the unventilated suite defaulted into election night chatter: “Two-seventy is impossible without Wisconsin.” “Florida has 29 electrical votes, but their demographics are changing.” “If Romney wins Ohio, he still needs Pennsylvania, but if Obama wins Ohio he doesn’t need Pennsylvania.”