Election Night: Part 1

I'm trying to make up for the fact that I missed the late debate by documenting election night.  I'll be flipping back and forth between the three cable networks.  I don't know where I'll spend the most time, but I know that I want to be watching the losing side whenever they call an important state, because that's where it's the most fun (I mean, if you like despair, which I do).  Enjoy!

6:02PM: Every time I turned on Fox today, they were talking about voter fraud or the new black panthers.  I think it's very telling that every other channel spent the day occasionally telling you what you can do if your voting rights are being curtailed in some way while, conversely, Fox kept promoting their voter fraud email hotline.  You get the sense Republicans aren't too optimistic about tonight.  We'll see.

6:05PM: Matthews on MSNBC - "Mitch McConnell is the firewall against the crazies".  We may need a little more help than that.

6:09PM: Over on Fox Brett Baier is telling me about Virginia counties.  Who let him in the building tonight? He's an idiot.  And Megyn Kelly's here too.  Maybe they're saving the smart people for when the votes actually start coming in.

6:11PM: Well here's Chris Wallace anyway.  He just called Karl Rove "the architect of George W. Bush's Presidential victories".  Yes, congratulations Karl on building the most amazing shit sandwich we've ever seen.

6:17PM: CNN already has John King playing with a magic wall.  Anderson Cooper is also standing by what I'm going to call the wall sized TV screen of nonsense.  At least the dopes at Fox have a desk.

6:20PM: CNN's Erin Burnett is in Ohio.  Her and her pretty eyes say we might know who won Ohio around midnight.

6:22PM: CNN is reporting that Florida had a problem with about 35,000 ballots that were not printed correctly, so now volunteers have to transpose those faulty ballot results onto good ballots so they can be scanned and counted.  Really Florida? Twelve years later and you are still fucking awful at this?  Just understand that we all hate you.

6:24PM: CNN is hard to look away from.  Right now some guy is standing in the middle of what appears to be a virtual fake Senate chamber where they're using the individual fake virtual desks to display different issues that the next President will have an impact on.  I can't do it justice with words, you really had to see it.

6:28PM: While some MSNBC lady reports from what appears to be an empty Mitt Romney auditorium in Boston, someone in the background appears to be playing smooth jazz.  Rachel Maddow noticed too and called it the "we don't know yet jazz".

6:31PM: Steve Schmidt is on MSNBC sadly recounting being on the wrong side of the 2008 electoral beatdown dished out by the Obama campaign.  He's talking about the importance of Mitt Romney's impending concession speech.  He may not have put it exactly that way.  He added "winning is a lot more fun than losing".  Glad he's here.

6:35PM: Fox's Bill Hemmer is reporting from the "Bill"board.  Ohhhh, I see what they did there.  Hemmer eventually added "red is Republican, blue is Democrat".  That's super helpful, thanks.

6:38PM: Megyn Kelly just told me that they have Charles Krauthammer coming up.  I don't know if that was meant as a warning or a threat, but either way, thanks Megyn.  Let's see what CNN is up to.

6:44PM: Summary of analysis from all three networks so far.  If the people who would vote for (insert candidate here) actually come out to vote, (insert candidate here) will win the night.

6:48PM: Alex Wagner is covering Senate races for MSNBC.  She says a recent poll had Scott Brown leading Elizabeth Warren.  That makes me grumpy, but Alex is kind of adorable so it's OK.

6:52PM: CNN just ran a montage of soundbites from past elections.  You know, back when they were a news network.

6:54PM: I've been watching CNN for three minutes now and all I've seen is different montages.  Maybe they just gave up and went home.

6:57PM: MSNBC is reporting tonight from "Democracy Plaza".  That's right across the street from Fox's famous "Fascism Square".

6:58PM: By the way, I'm not calling CNN's magic wall a "magic wall" because I think it's funny or clever, I don't think that.  I'm calling it a "magic wall" because the people who work at CNN keep calling it that and I think they're morons.

6:59PM: I'm going to Fox for the 7:00PM results because I want to see how excited they get about Romney winning Kentucky (turned out, sadly, not very).

7:01PM: Romney won Kentucky and Indiana, Obama won Vermont.  There you go.  Fox is still sticking with Kelly and Baier.  Where's Shepherd Smith? Is he being held hostage somewhere?

7:07PM: CNN exit polls in Virginia look pretty craptastic for the President.  Good thing he doesn't really need it.

7:12PM: MSNBC has a magic wall too, but you don't hear them yapping about it the whole time, do you CNN?

7:18PM: Related note.  I didn't get my "I voted" sticker when I voted today.  What's up with that?  I heard the same thing on Twitter from other people in my area.  People in Massachusetts aren't getting our "I voted" stickers.  If that's not a good enough reason to vote Scott Brown out of office, I don't know what is.

7:21PM: I just hit the rare triple commercial situation.  What should I call that?  It's really the shittiest thing that could happen on my TV right now, so I'm going to call it a Gingrich.

7:24PM: MSNBC's election night anchor desk is so big Congress just granted it three electoral votes.  The Romney campaign has already dispatched Paul Ryan to give a speech, but I'm pretty sure it's Obama country.

7:29PM: Fox's Kirsten Powers says she would read something into the exit polls if the exit polls are right.  Wait, what?  Wouldn't everybody read something into the exit polls if we knew they were right?  She's lucky Kirsten is one of my favorite names.

7:31PM: Megyn Kelly called West Virginia for Romney and added "the President's stances on energy policy and social issues are very unpopular there".  Also, the President's continued insistence on being black is very unpopular there.

7:35PM: Fox is making Chris Wallace sit in a dimly lit room with Karl Rove and Joe Trippi all night.  He must have really pissed somebody off.

7:39PM: MSNBC's Chuck Todd - "the joke in Ohio is that it's five Ohios".  I'm pretty sure Chuck just made that joke up.

7:48PM: Bernie Sanders won another term in the Senate.  Fox added "that's right, a socialist in the Senate, that's Barack Obama's America".

7:50PM: Fox is now covering Twitter activity.  Fox viewers have no earthly idea what they're talking about.  Three million grandparents just called their grandkids and asked "what's a tweeter?"

7:54PM: Fox just called Georgia for Romney.  I never understand how Republicans do so well in Georgia.  I know it's got a lot of rednecks, but Atlanta's a pretty big city.  Shouldn't it at least be a swing state?

8:00PM: Obama wins Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine (3 of the 4 electoral votes...why do you have to be special Maine?) and Rhode Island.  Romney gets Oklahoma.

8:03PM: Alabama polls closed at 8, but they don't have internet there yet so we don't have official calls until they send a redneck in a pickup truck up to the CNN studio with the actual numbers.

8:08PM: Four crucial Senate races leaning Democrat.  Congratulations Republicans, you moroned your way right out of a Senate majority.

8:11PM: Ohhhhh, Shep Smith is on the actual Fox network, that's why the cable channel gets team dumbass.

8:15PM: O'Reilly just showed up on Fox.  Where did he come from?  Is he only allowed to start talking at 8PM?  He thinks if Obama wins it's because he's pandering to people who want the government to do stuff for them.  So true.  It was really unfair of the President to campaign on the idea that he might actually, ya know, help some people.

8:18PM: Sounds like O'Reilly's leaving already.  That was quick, and weird.  That's what she said.

8:20PM: Apparently Indiana voters are rejecting the idea that rape babies are a gift from god.  Better start re-working that platform before the next election.

8:22PM: Dave adds "instead of Hofstra, I wish I graduated from Electoral College".

8:23PM: CNN is doing a suspenseful countdown to when Arkansas polls close, because Arkansas is the only state that closes at 8:30.  How long before each state closes at a slightly different time so they all get their moment in the spotlight?  "ohhh, its 8:36, one more minute until Illinois polls close!"

8:28PM: I haven't checked in on MSNBC in a while.  It's always good to check back from time to time to make sure Matthews is still conscious.

8:31PM: Chris Murphy beat the wrestling lady in the Connecticut Senate race.  I feel a little better about my country just now.

8:33PM: Me, just now - "zombie JFK would do very well with Irish Catholics...and zombies".  How did that come up?  I don't have to explain myself to you.

8:37PM: On Fox, Huckleberry is talking about how Barack Obama's been trampling all over religious liberties for four years.  I wish I could go on TV and report things that only happen in my imagination as actual news.

8:40PM: Almost another Gingrich, but MSNBC saved the day.  I swear running a campaign which included Sarah Palin replaced every other emotion Steve Schmidt used to be able to feel with sadness.

8:46PM: Ken Blackwell on MSNBC - "nobody's out there trying to suppress the vote".  Everyone on MSNBC's panel took turns telling him how he was wrong about that.  He agreed that trying to reduce early voting was bad, but still somehow defended the current Ohio Secretary of State for doing it.

8:52PM: Do you think Linda McMahon will run for the Senate again someday?  I feel like she can't stop herself.

OK, end part one.  I'll start part two in a few minutes and post it whenever we have a winner or I have to go to sleep because I have work tomorrow.