election2008

They're dyin' to call this for Obama, aren't they? (In fact, they just did at 11 PM ET) In our last update, NBC called Pennsylvania for Obama before barely any votes were counted, then they were on top of Ohio like lions on a limping elk. According to their board, the big O has over 200 electoral votes already, whereas the New York Times website says Obama only has 159. Do the networks have better exit poll data than the Times or are they just too eager to wrte the conclusion to The Obama Story? It's anyone's guess. At least they're not falling all over themselves to call it based on Ohio, like other sites are doing.

More observations:

• From the girlfriend: "Ann Curry looks foxy! Well, she does!" I agree. Curry's rockin' the boots on the virtual set tonight.
• They showed the green room again at 9:30. BriWi's doing it for "full disclosure," but when the graphics turn off, Curry ends up looking so lonely in there.
• Speaking of which, Curry told Brian Williams that "she felt like she was in a video game," then her Sincerity Chip kicked in and she added "Whatever it takes to get the information out to people, Brian." Sure, because phony columns, fake birds, and spinning graphics are the only way to do that.

It's 10:00 P.M. Do you know who your next president is? Here are some more notes about the election coverage over at ABC

8:52 Guess what's coming to ABC primetime in January? It's the beginning of the phrase 'and found'. So far, we've had two ads about the new season. Uh oh, 15 more states close polls at 9:00.

8:55 My 2-year-old just woke up. He must be worried about the fate of the U.S. just like the rest of us.

9:00 Whoops! They went to Charlie before he rattled off the latest results. We got to see the electoral count numbers before he was finished. Always keep on the graphics, kids.

9:10 Yes, we know that Grant Park is getting crowded.

The continuing adventures of Anderson Cooper, Mr. Magoo and the magic board.

10:20: They've moved out to the lawn in Phoenix. The atmosphere there is quite a bit more, uh, subdued than in Chicago.

10:19: Yikes. Dana Bash looks more and more depressed each time they show her. She's reporting that McCain's camp has given up.

10:08: Wolf Blitzer: "Arkansas. Put that in John McCain's column right now." Is it wrong that that made me snicker? It doesn't even make sense!

9:59: Iowa was just called for Obama, and Anderson Cooper just asked what they're going to do when he gets to 270 electoral votes. "We leave!" was the reply. We'll see if that actually happens. Could we have an empty eleciton center soon? Check back for more coverage!

9:55: Roland Martin compared the Obama supporters in Grant Park to Lollapalooza. Meanwhile, back at the Biltmore, an unidentified old man is wandering around aimlessly on stage.

More from Katie and Company:

10:07: Switching over to see what PBS and FOX News are up to. Know why? I'm a maverick.

9:49: Will I have another drink tonight? TOO CLOSE TO CALL.

9:42: I have a real crush on Peggy Noonan. Not sure why.

9:31: Is anyone even paying attention to the sides of the CBS HD screen? I'd rather see cartoons or Three Stooges shorts played, picture-in-picture style.

9:24: Schieffer and Greenfield both call the election after Ohio goes to Obama. That's it for the election! Good night everybody! You would think they'd let it go a little bit longer considering the 2000 fiasco.

9:04: McCain HQ is playing Eddie Money? No wonder he's behind.

8:50: Jeff Greenfield says "Sarah Palin was Norma Rae for two weeks, then she was somebody else." Maybe when they come back from commercial he'll say who. Any guesses?

8:49: Bob Schieffer says Katie partly responsible for Sarah Palin's fall. Katie says "keep it up Bob and you're next."

FOX NEWS - AMERICA'S ELECTION HQ. Not dramatic enough? Maybe we could spruce it up a bit. "Fox News - For Election Coverage that's Guaranteed Right!" Even some of their analysts were reluctant to think that the country could go to the left of center.

Fox News Channel is a part of the new media, running streams of election data along the bottom, including a static corner box tracking projected electoral votes. We get two different bits of election data next to that, changing about every 7 seconds. Above that is an Alert bar with text data "Fox News Projects John McCain has won Kentucky." And, of course, they kept it scrolling through the commercials, too.

Election night! Election night! Let's check out the folks at CNN. Is Wolf Blitzer going to lose his mind? Is Anderson Cooper going to be pretty? Is John King going to lovingly stroke the magic board? Let's find out.

9:00: That's what we've got for now. I'll be back shortly with more updates-- and maybe we'll have a new president. Not that CNN will project that.

8:59: Soledad O'Brien is looking at demographic information with Mr. Magoo. Poor Mr. Magoo can't work the touch screen because he's not tall enough. Hilariously, this comes at the point in which they're talking about how age is a factor in the way people vote.

8:57: Drink. They're not even making a projection in Arizona.

852: Can someone tell me what is up with these clean coal commercials? This is the 7,000th one I've seen today.

8:48: James Carville looks more and more like a reanimated corpse every day.

Thankfully, NBC has decided once again to do different election coverage than their kissing cousins at MSNBC. So instead of David Gregory trying to moderate slap fights between Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, and Chris Matthews, we get the relatively dignified analysis of Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell and Ann Curry. Whew. Looks like I selected the right network.

Some observations from the first couple of hours of coverage:

• Chuck Todd really has to shave his goatee. Yes, it was nice for awhile. But he might be the host of Meet the Press after this election is over; how can any one take him seriously with that "look, Ma, I can grow a beard!" look?
• Ann Curry is doing exit polling in a green room. Not a green screen, mind you, but an entire green room. It's freaky. Williams wanted to assure us that Curry was safe from those flying graphics. Nice of him.
• Does Williams have to remind us of his blue-collar, fire-fightin', hard-drinkin' past at every turn? "It's probably not a good thing that I know where Finnegans' Wake (a bar in Philly that's Obama's HQ there) is" he says to Mike Taibbi. Thanks for the insight into your past, Bri.

Okay, it's been about 80 minutes since ABC News began their coverage of the elections, and I have just one thing to say: Diane Sawyer is hot! And, I guess George Stephanopoulos is cute, as well. Other than that, there isn't much else to report about the early coverage of the 2008 Presidential election. Which, I have heard, is historic. I know this because I heard it mentioned 550 times since coverage began.

So far, I give high marks to the team of Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer, and George. I can't put my finger on it, but they seem to be the classiest and most qualified team of the Big Three networks. It's probably Charlie, who is the veteran of all of the current national news anchors. Plus, you know, Diane is hot. Together, they were able to keep the coverage moving during the first hour as the exit poll results were few and far between.

Speaking about those election results ... Thumbs up to ABC for not giving their estimates of winners in those states that are too close to call. Sure, it really didn't do much to pump up the election coverage energy, but it prevented me from throwing my remote at my HDTV screen and screaming that they were ruining the election. By the way, why does ABC's HDTV channel have the lowest volume on any channel? My volume control doesn't go high enough to get the proper sound. So, it's standard analog coverage for me, thank you very much.

If you're a regular watcher of MSNBC, the Election Night coverage feels like a suped-up version of the usual prime time line-up. They're calling it Election Plaza, overlooking Rockefeller Center, with giant screens, flags and -- my favorite -- the map of the United States on the ice skating rink.

6:30 The main desk is set with David Gregory center-most, Chris Matthews to his right, Keith Olbermann to his left. Yes, Keith is on the left. It some ways it looked like the last supper, only without the food.

6:45 My main problem with MSNBC is this framing device showing information on the right, the top and the bottom of the screen. This is what Lewis Black was screaming about at the Emmys in 2007. There's too much information on the screen. This reminds me of ESPN coverage of the NFL Draft.

Some quick notes on the Katie Couric-anchored election coverage on The Tiffany Network:

7:26: They've gone to local coverage for a bit. Good time for my first gin and tonic of the evening. I'll be back later with more, and stay tuned for posts from CNN, MSNBC, and more.

7:18: Now Katie says "Can you hear me now? I sound like a Sprint commercial" to Obama spokesman. Can't she get any of her commercial icon references right tonight?!?

7:14: First glitch of the night: can't hear what Obama spokesman is saying. Katie goes to McCain spokesman instead. CBS IN THE TANK FOR MCCAIN!

7:07: CBS's "Magic Board" (or whatever they're calling it) isn't as good as CNN's. It's the Sony Walkman to CNN's iPod.

7:05: Jeff Greenfield is firing off sports/weather cliches to describe the election. I already miss Dan Rather and his Ratherisms: "This race is tighter than a cranberry muffin at an auto show."

Every single media outlet, whether it's the major networks, the cable news networks, print, radio, online, and carrier pigeon, will be covering the election tonight. And that includes us!

Starting at 7pm ET, TV Squad will be doing election posts. We'll be covering all of the networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and Comedy Central. We'll have several posts during the night and several posts after we find out who the next President is. This could be around 9:30pm or it could be around 11:15pm. It could even be 4am, though I'm not sure how many of us will still be awake at that time.

These won't be posts that analyze state results or exit polls or voting trends or who's ahead and who's behind. We'll be doing the fun stuff, like what mistakes the anchors make, what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have to say, what anchor on FOX News cries because Obama is ahead, and the cleanup procedure at MSNBC if Keith Olbermann's head explodes from a McCain win. Tune in tonight!

If you are not a Canadian, you probably didn't know we had federal elections in mid-October. However, Canadians know very well the U.S. election is going on right now and that the vote is today since we are neighbors and because American economy affects Canada's.

This past year, and especially since Obama and McCain really started to campaign a few weeks ago, the news airing on Canadian TV stations have all included some type of coverage and updates about the U.S. elections. Some of the 24-hour news stations even had special shows that lasted hours, for example, during the first presidential debate, to update us on the goings-on of the American election. So it's no surprise if that there is some sort of U.S. election coverage on Canadian TV channels tonight.

Feeling a little stressed out about Election Day? Worried you'll completely seize up with anxiety in the voting booth, collapse and not be found for several hours? Worried that the building will burst into flames and/or the Rapture will happen before anyone does find you? Yeah. Yeah, me too. For those that want a little something to calm their nerves before/after they do their American duty and have already run out of horse tranquilizers, Comedy Central is running an all-day marathon of the most recent episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on November 4th.

Well, that concludes Saturday Night Live's three week run of "Weekend Update Thursday." There were some good jokes here and there, including tonight's especially strong cold open, but looking back, we really could have done without these three episodes. Most of this material, election-related and otherwise, could have been bumped to the regular Saturday program without any problem. I'm sure we could come up with a list of sketches in the past few SNLs that deserved to be replaced. Someone fix my time machine and let's get this job done. I don't want to hear any of that "There's no such thing as a flux capacitor" bullcrap.

I liked it. I laughed. Sure. I also laughed last week, but I can't quite remember what was so funny. These specials are pretty forgettable, bleeding into my Saturday Night Live memory and then dropping into the recesses of my mind. Again, I understand the need to jump on the debate coverage as soon as possible, but I honestly could have held on until Saturday. Or maybe they were worried that everyone would be sick of Joe the Plumber by then. Well... too late.