By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist

OK, I'm giving up. It's 12:45 a.m. and the McCain-Palin team leads Obama-Biden in Missouri by about 17,000 votes, with 98 percent of the precincts reporting.

I don't know how this happened. It looks as though turnout statewide is about 200,000 voters higher than in 2004. Obama won commanding leads in the cities, and made gained more votes than John Kerry in nearly all rural counties.

The difference may be in the suburbs. McCain won the part of Jackson County that doesn't include Kansas City 50 to 48 percent. And he won the crucial St. Charles County, outside of St. Louis, 54 to 44 percent.

Well, whatever. There wasn't a lot of glory in being the bellwether, except that reporters and news crews from places like Washington, London and Germany came to interview us in election season.