Well.. now that that's over.. let's dissect, shall we. Got home shortly after 11:30 last night, after Obama had been pronounced The Grand Ruler once again. Decided to settle into my easy chair with a beer or two or three or four... and watch it all unfold. Being a good CBS employee I started there, but just couldn't bring myself to stay on it. I don't know what it is about Scott Pelley, seems like a nice enough guy. Sounds like a credible source. But he has a little too much of that "Ya Heard with Purd" thing going on.
"Let's take a look at the numbers of the popular vote now. And there you have it. These are the results of the popular vote that we are looking at right now."
So, I slid on over to ABC, which was a little better. Unfortunately it was sensory overload. It looked like one of those post-debate roundtable discussions, only all the people sitting in the chairs were dead. Not to mention they pulled the crypt-keeper out of her slumber to moderate it all.
In retrospect, I wish I had stuck around a little more because apparently, Diane Sawyer was trashed.
From there I landed on NBC for the majority of the early morning with the occasional commercial flip over to CNN, which was actually ok coverage, just not nearly as entertaining as NBC. First off, you had Brian Williams in rare form, yucking it up with his panel and various guests, from Deval Patrick to Jerry Brown to the cowboy-hippie-hybrid who's governor of Colorado. (Patrick sounded like a guy pining for higher office, Jerry Brown sounded a guy pining for higher taxes (and got them) and the Colorado governor was just pining to get high (you saw that comin'). But seriously, loved the Jerry Brown interivew. He was in attack mode. I dont think anyone told him that the republicans lost but he didnt care. He was just goin off. Kinda made me want to move to Cali.. if I wasn't already wanting to move to Colorado.)
Anyway, NBC's set-up was pretty cool. 1st off, they had Tom Brokaw. And it just doesn't get any better than that. Everytime that guy speaks, it's like listening to a history book in action. Nothing can be properly placed in historical context, until Tom Brokaw has had a crack at it. They also had Chuck Todd in charge of the team of pollsters, and running numbers from his fancy monitor/hologram thingy (Though I was a little dissapointed Tupac never popped up) Say what you want about Chuck Todd, but he spends every waking minute inside the President's asshole, so he knows this race inside and out. They also had this huge map of America down on the ice at 30 rock, which they filled in with red or blue paint as the states were called.. and of course, African-American reporter Tamron Hall drew the short straw and was standing down on the ice, in a skirt, in the freezing cold, talking about random, stupid demographic polling info.
How's it look down there, Tamron?
It's cold!
They did lose points for trying to jam Savanna Guthrie down our throats -- who, side note -- just seemed totally pissed off all night. Either she was pulling for Mitt, or was just bitter about having to go back to work with Lauer in the morning. But the best thing NBC did was they acutally let all these reporters talk. They would toss it to Brokaw, or Lester Holt, or Richard Engel.. and just say alright, take it away. They let them just editorialize a little bit, which after several hours, and at 1 in the morning, was really great because they were able to just let it fly, and talk about things that they actually knew best.. not just regurgitating stats that were placed in the prompter for them.
But the definitive highlight of the night, was when they brought in some GOP strategist via satellite for an interview. I never heard of him but he's apparently a frequent contributor to the NBC news family, as they all seemed quite familiar. Basically, this dude had one job -- to sit there and get wailed on by all the liberals on the panel.. starting with Brian Williams. It was just hilarious. He just kept saying, "well we republicans have a lot to think about. There's going to be a big fight inside the party. It's going to get ugly. We have to redefine ourselves.. etc etc etc" And you could just see Williams was eating it up! It's like when your team wins the superbowl, and you watch the opposing team's post game press conference with that shit-eating grin on your face, lapping up their misery and dancing in their blood. It was hilarous. This guy just sat there with his "oh shucks" face taking haymaker after haymaker. And what's even better, after Williams was done with him he goes, "Ok, stay right there because when we get back, Chuck Todd wants to ask you a few questions!" So they go to commercial, come back, and then get a three-way discussion going, and its Todd's turn to start thorwing haymakers! IT was priceless! Then at the end, they called up a triple box, with Todd in the middle, and he just sat there with this smug grin on his face, looking in the camera as if to say, "I told you asshole! I've been telling you this for 2 years! IN YOUR FACE!"
Riveting television all around, and a riveting night. Great speech by Obama. Energetic, but also very smartly crafted. He hit once again on all his key campaign points, then laid out the "we need to work together to get America back" line (Congress, I'm looking in your direction). Played up all the "lessons he learned" on the campaign trail, and started laying the groundwork for his "legacy moves" in his 2nd term. Then ended with a highly erousing, er, Rousing, finish that made everyone proud to be American... As Todd said, if he gave that kind of empassionsed speech at the DNC, it wouldn't have been this close. And how about Mitt! Oh man, poor guy. What an uncomfortable, awkward, squeamish speech. People kept cheering, but he wouldn't stop talking. Just kept plowing through his thanks yous as if to say "let me get this shit over with so I can get the fuck out of here and go back to the tabernacle." Just out there, all alone, speaking his lame ass concession speech through gritted teeth. (see scott brown's concession for a rare good job at one of these.. but in his defense, I think he had thrown back a few). I almost feel bad for the guy. Basically, he spent the better part of two decades trying to get that job, and now he's just another shmoe... just another shmoe with 10 billion dollars in the bank. Yeah, fuck him. It was pretty hilarious though when "the clan" came out after his speech. They just kept pouring out onto the stage! There's hundreds of those fuckers! I kept waiting for the Benny Hill theme to kick in.
Anyway, as for me, I'm going to go talk to a doctor about this debilitating hangnail I have. If he doesn't want to play ball, then I may have to start inquiring about jobs in Colorado.
-Z
P.S. The absolute best part of this election is that after all the punditry and years of predictions.. only one man nailed it right on the head.... of course he did.
Bob Dylan predicts an Obama win: “A landslide”
Call him a musical Nate Silver. Bob Dylan predicted Monday night at a Wisconsin concert that President Obama would win today’s election by ”a landslide,” the AP reports.
President Barack Obama stands Bob Dylan before awarding Dylan the Medal of Freedom during a White House ceremony in Washington this past May. (Charles Dharapak/AP)
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