When you live in a country with proportional representation elections you find the representational system a bit quaint, considering the Gore/Bush election probably unjust, but not least entertaining. And in fact the entertainment value, one thinks, ends up being one of the attractions of the system (another it the immediacy, and the direct consequence of local votes which should help foster personal responsibility).
Take this post on the Daily Kos. It is a careful pro-Kerry listing of what the election looks like in terms of electoral votes. It has as many numbers as the baseball stats. It is interesting in how many ways the american media turns the election campaign into numbers and 'plays'. The Electoral vote counting. The incessant polling. The focus on the fund drives. The notion of 'plays', football style, comes up in this treatment on the campaigns:

President George W. Bush rolled out a new stump speech this morning featuring tough criticism of Sen. John Kerry's leadership, as the stopwatch ticks down in the presidential race