The Press Box - Press Box Election Night Live Podcast

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker sort through the midterm election results, ponder the fate of the republic, and make fun of the pundits on cable news. Plus, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Issa Kwanga and I'm Ryan Hunt and we co-host Stadio, a football podcast on the Ring of Podcast Network. If you like soccer or football, make sure you search for Stadio, a football podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David? Yes. It's election night. We've got a long way to go, but it looks like it might be a good night for the Republicans. And if it is, I've got just one thing to say. And what's that?

The grand old party still got it. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to the press boxes live election night podcast. Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantes here. We are coming to you from a kind of limbo. Republicans coming into the night needed just one net seat in the Senate to take the majority. So far, they haven't picked it up. We are looking at a bunch of different races.

as they say on CNN. Pennsylvania, John Federman, has a very slight lead over Mehmed Oz, 42% of the vote in. Georgia, Herschel Walker, is leading Raphael Warnock, 49.1% to 48.9% with 71% of the votes in.

The New York Times needle, for what it's worth, calls the Senate a toss-up favoring the Republicans to take it narrowly, 51-49. And Nate Silver, David, just wrote on his side, 538. Democrats may have a fairly bad

but they're unlikely to have a catastrophic one. Where's your head at slightly after 10 p.m. Easter? Fairly bad, fairly bad, but not catastrophic, I think is a great way of framing it. This is this sort of like, like everybody's finding the appropriate words from deep in their political to sources to describe this thing that doesn't, that isn't too spectacular in either direction. I saw Chuck Todd earlier actually like segregating off the different

labeling the different the different levels of a wave. It's like it's a ripple and then correct me if anyone listening if I get this wrong. It's a ripple and then something that he called a house wave which would be I guess a fairly good showing in the house but with little other effect

and then a proper wave and then a tsunami is somewhere away at the top. We're certainly non-sunami territory. We may be in house wave territory. But even that, who knows? Who knows? I mean, we go back to what we're talking about the last time that we spoke, which was just a mere day ago, seems like a lifetime ago, where basically you say there's the expectations of loss and you weigh that against the realities of what you might lose. You also weigh that against whatever the margin of necessity would be

to have a like some system of government in place tomorrow. And, and those, these, those three things are always, are not really like in harmony in any, in any sort of way. So yeah,

you can describe, whatever happens, you'll be able to describe it a lot of different ways. What level of wave results in us not having a system of government tomorrow? That's the one I'm afraid of. Uh, no, I mean,

I, obviously I'm being facetious, but, you know, if Republicans take the House and the Senate, and then, you know, decide that the next two years is just going to be a perpetual debt crisis for the sole purpose

of slashing the Social Security and the rest of the safety net. And I don't think that's a very functional way path forward. But, you know, to each their own. I love that we've already had a Democrats are screwing it up news cycle tonight. In North Carolina, Sherry Beasley is running a fairly tight race against Ted Budd. If you look at the New York Times predictions, they are not very high on Sherry Beasley's chances, but there was already this sense of, wait a second, why did National Democrats ignore that race in Ohio? Same thing with Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance. Right now, that's 46.54 in favor of J.D. Vance.

So the Democratic recriminations, David, one of our favorite things about any election night, even when the Democrats win, this one had to kick off earlier than expected. I heard it on CNN at like 7.30 Eastern time. Why didn't the Democrats put more? muscle in North Carolina where they could have picked off a sentencing. That just entertains me to nowhere. Ohio too. I mean, they could have spent a lot more money in Ohio.

It seemed like they didn't, they weren't quite sure how deeply to get in there. And there will be a lot of recrimination to go around. I mean, listen, the fact that this is that we'll all be able to look back and say that this was, whatever happened, this was a fully national election, as a nationalized election, even on the, most local levels, every Republican is voting based on what they perceived to be the Biden administration's failure on the economy and more generally on, maybe not directly as it applies to Biden, but the protection of our children in their schools, and not obviously as it pertains to gun violence, they don't care about that, but, you know, in terms of protecting them against the evil influences

of whatever. The fact that it's a fully nationalized election, and these are the things, these are the quote unquote national issues that are actually driving people to the polls is a just a, just a complete and utter failure on the Democrats part. I mean, we, the opposition is actively trying to outlaw abortion at this moment. And that is not one of the salient issues that people are talking about in their exit polls, you know? I mean, it's, it's, and not only that, but, you know, Republicans have literally said out loud that their plan for the next two years

is a fake debt crisis in order to slash Social Security. Mitch McConnell is the top advisor said this out loud. Like, it's crazy. And it's only like, I mean, at a bare minimum, if you don't want to go there, look at the smart things

that our former President Obama is saying when he's going around places saying, look, they don't have a plan. They can point and say, like everything is bad, but there's no solutions. And the second half of that is there's no solutions because they don't care about solutions. They care about the other shit they want to do.

You know, and I don't know. So yeah, recriminations all around. We were talking a little bit about this on Monday about these ironclad sort of laws of politics where a party elects a president. And then two years later, unless something really, really strange happens, that party is going to lose seats in the House and often lose seats in the Senate. Now, let's go back to my caveat there, unless something really, really strange happens. Well, what's happened over the last two years? Well, a bunch of protesters stormed the Capitol on January 6th. As the former president tried to steal the election, you also mention abortion, Roe versus Wade, being overturned.

And it's weird to me that then you just go, oh, well, oh, well, but see these political rules apply here. the Democrats will lose seats in the House, so probably lose at least one seat in the Senate because this is how it happens. Even if this was by any stretch of the imagination an absolutely abnormal two years of American politics, and that's putting it very, very nicely. Yeah, I mean, the question is,

every year, every two years going to be in a completely bizarre two years moving forward. I think that we kind of, I mean, I don't think that's an excuse for anything I just said, But I think that there's going to be a lot of kind of, or there should be a lot of kind of resetting of reality moving forward after this election. I don't, whatever, whatever piece of the old playbook that anybody's running doesn't seem to be working anymore. We'll grab any results that come in live. But we've kind of reached the point of the night where CNN has key race alert on the screen at all times.

So we've got to talk a little bit about cable news. Yeah, let's talk about it. And by the way, everybody who's listening to this, thank you for hanging out. Thank you for being in the comment section. Get in the discussion. Get in the chat. Tell us what you're watching live. Because Brian and I both have various screens on mute right now so that our audio doesn't

go haywire. Let us know if anything hilarious happens. Brian, you're watching CNN right now in the background. Is that right? Yeah. And they just went to the Starship Enterprise Bridge panel where there was seven people on the screen at one time. I've got MSNBC, which is,

there's not a lot going on without audio. So I don't know. You know, the funny thing is when you start flipping channels with the sound on, all these channels kind of look the same, you know? I mean, maybe that's not a revelation. But everything, everything looks the same, man. Here was the big difference tonight, I think. The board on CNN.

We know the board is manned by number cruncher John King. that's become something that CNN's done over the last few election cycles. What was interesting tonight, dude, is that Jake Tapper, who's kind of the anchor of CNN's coverage or one of their anchors, was standing at the board with John King. And often saying, like, excuse me, I'm going to interrupt you here to ask you to point out some salient piece of information that I think is really important. Like he was not at a desk. they were standing on either side of the board. And if I can do instant think piece here, it really made me sort of wonder if that's another sign about how analytics

have gone from being something that a tiny number of people who enjoy politics or sports deal with to something that has become the main course in our political discussions and our sports discussions. I mean, it's almost like CNN admitting the action is here at the big board. Yes. The action is not at the desk. We're in a normal year, Jake Tapper would be surrounded by pundits. The action is at the things that John King is pointing at.

It's also incredibly awkward, right? Because it evokes like, you know, someone walking up to you. Like, it's like if you're at the body shop and the mechanics working on your car and you just walk up and stand next to him and you're just like, did you check that piece? That tube, you sure that's the problem?

I don't know anything about car. cars, but, you know, I'd just like to be here when the engine's getting operated on. There's nothing more infuriating that if you're presumably the mechanic. But King is holding himself together. It is, it is, it is interesting. It's funny because I was watching Get Up yesterday. This is, you know, the press box. So I'm allowed to bring that into the conversation. Watching Get Up with my wife. And we watch, you know, various morning shows on various days, but don't always watch Get Up Together, although she does

get a kick out of morning sports programming. And every time they would go to the get away from the table and go to the thing where they're standing in front of a monitor together, she was just like, this is terrible. Why are they doing this? Why are they making me watch this? And then I flipped over to the

good morning football and they were like outside in Germany with like a beautiful cathedral or something behind them. And she's just like, I'm just looking at their shoes. And I don't like their shoes. Like, why are they showing me these bodies? And I'm like, I don't know.

I'm guessing that there's some like very, like, you know, very, very clear test marketing that shows that when you show a full body, whatever, the antic movement for better or worse, makes you watch, you know, like gets you there. And I'm sure that that's part of probably what really appeals about the big board. They'm sure they have numbers saying these boards work. And in the first several cycles, we're just like, people care about the data. we do, but I think we also just care about saying like full-length bodies standing on these like crazy, you know, green screens and and talking about politics that way as opposed to just

from behind the desk. Well, part of the trick here is making counting votes, which is the single most boring thing that any human can imagine. We are counting the votes seem exciting. Yeah. So maybe if we're standing and pointing at a screen, counting votes will seem like this incredibly exciting important exercise. Just like if we're on getup, we're standing and pointing at a screen while we watch an instant replay of something a football player did. Yeah. Replays not fun for the masses, but if I stand and point and circle things, it'll give it a little

tension. It'll give it a little excitement. It's true. It's also just funny to watch where like everybody else who's on the set, but not on the screen. And Jake Tapper, when he's there standing next to John King. It's sort of like, like, not exactly like interrogating the points that are made, right? I mean, these are numbers, not much to do with it, not exactly helping to explain, but sort of

acting a little bit as the audience avatar, like asking questions, you know, like on MSNBC. It's like, you hear like Matt Allen from like the other room. It's just like, now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the Virginia Senate seat that's going to be the bellwether for the whole election. Is that what I understand, is what I understand correct? Yeah, it's good. Joe B in the comment section just said PBS as Perry Bacon Jr. I did not realize PBS was on the air right now.

I guess it's a huge. The press box is very own. Yeah. We got to flip over there. I don't know about you, by the way. The Jake Tapper John King thing seemed kind of tense to me at times tonight. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If you walk up to somebody doing their job, don't you ever have you ever, have you ever like your,

like your significant other asked you to do a job that's like a little bit like, it's like you're going to, you're, it's a faith. to ask, right? Can you crawl under this thing and do this thing? And like, it's going to be kind of it's awkward and gross and you're whatever. And you're like, sure, I'll do it. And then they, like, they're standing next to you and you're just like, like being micromanaged was not part of the arrangement. Right. Like, I'm happy to do this thing. But I'm just going to, I want to kind of just do it on my own, right? That's what it kind of feels like. It's a very, it's tense. It's tense. David's bringing the relationship analogies tonight. Well, you know, this is is a ringer podcast. You know, it's like when you and your wife watch get up in the morning.

No, I don't know that. What that's like. By the way, one more point about John King. Have you noticed how all business John King is? Oh, yeah. I mean, he's done three hours of television tonight without smiling or laughing one time. John King is, it's funny. I mean, I talk a lot about my preconceptions of John King over the years or whatever because it was like he was like sort of like penciled in to be the next, like, big anchor, you know, to be the next, like, you know, the next Tom Brokaw or whatever, you know, but, like, it's funny that, like, like, this big board role was, like, created for Steve Kornacki over on MSNBC. On CNN, it's like, it's like, Cornacki existed and the big board was created for him.

On CNN, it was like the big board was created. And it just like, it's like the Borg that absorbed John King into it. And George John King has, like, become one. with the role over the year. So there's less and less humor as the days go on. But didn't it secretly turn into a better job than generic anchor job? Oh, yeah. It's like every two years in our lives, in our adult lives where you look back

where you're just like, don't you remember being like 20, like, I remember the first time it happened to me, 28, something like that when you were just like, man, I probably should have put my hand up when they said, who wants. wants to run Twitter for this company, you know? And then it's like, by the time you're like 32, you're like, shit, man, I could, could I do it now? No, no, no, it's too late. I'm too well.

It's like every, you just always look back and you're like, I could have been that social media guy. I could have been the social media guy and I could have been making lots of money. Yeah, that's what running the big board's all about. I don't think anybody was desperate for it at the time, but now it's the biggest ticket item. I got one huge complaint about CNN's coverage. tonight. Hold on.

Hold on. Before you go, Jordan Willelme in the comments, you'll appreciate this. Says I'm pretty sure it was Mel Kuiper, John King, then Kornacki, as far as Big Board chronology. Just so we make sure we get the founding fathers of the big board in order. Mel Kuiper, Steve Kornacki, John King. Thank you very much for that clarification. My huge complaint tonight, dude, 7 o'clock Eastern time on CNN, we have poll closings on the East Coast.

and you get this barrage of numbers. And these are very, very small numbers. One percent of the vote has been tabulated, one percent of precincts reporting in these various states. And John King and Jake Tapper would go to this number, and they would show it on the big board, and then they would go now, do not draw any conclusions from this.

This number is incredibly misleading. John Federman is not leading this race 90 to 10 right now. But then they would just keep showing it for an hour. Then they'd be like, all right, well, let's show the 1% of the vote from the Georgia Senate race. And you'd be like, no, no, no, you just told us these numbers are horribly misleading. And they don't mean anything right now. If you're winning with 1% of the vote in, you don't get to be a U.S. senator. But then they would just keep whipping around and showing it to us anyway.

All the time apologizing for showing us the numbers and saying that they were misleading and incomplete. And this was like an hour of television time. I'm not really sure what the solution is unless it's to like have some sort of model where you put the real votes into the into the projections that you had prior to the votes coming in. And you're saying like we're like literally on the screen. We're in line with what we thought might happen. You know, there's whoever is way out in front. But that meet. But we still believe the other person might win.

I don't know. They're so beholden to the calling the races. and whatever language they might use. I saw people like actively correcting talking heads on the air for saying things like, we're going to win Pennsylvania. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not an official pronouncement. I'm going to make everybody, make sure everybody knows that.

But the calling the races is actually the exciting. This is like them saying we're not calling anything. We're not even winking at you and telling you things are going great for Hershal Walker. Things are going great for Raphael Warnock right now. We're just going to pretend that this one. single number has meaning because we get an hour of time to fill. Well, that's just it. Everybody has, every channel on the entire dial is running election coverage right now.

So if you're not filling up your time, you're losing to somebody else. And no one has anything to say. They should just have all the races in the background with like a color coding system where it's just whatever, red to blue, it's whatever shade of purple until they can actually call something and then it kind of explodes into the fireworks of that color. And that's just the entire thing. So it's like the New York Times needle except it's a firework. Yeah, exactly. Fireworks are, who cares about a needle? Come on. Is the needle working? Is the needle up and running? Yeah, the needle was broken earlier tonight. Looking at the comments now, Micah says not enough love

for Nicole Wallace. I will second that. And by the way, my mom will third that very loudly. Nicole Wallace is more beloved in my mom's house than I am. So that's, she she's she's doing god's work um okay but you need to you need to share with me what you were texting me about the msnbc set up tonight because things were kind of wacky over on ms it's always mind-boggling to me when well there's a couple of things msnbc has always been a little bit laid back right and i don't mean laid back in terms of their various like demeanors i mean there's still there's still a very like like buttoned down sort of, you know, or at least ironically button down sort of like

Oberman gave way to Matt Al, gave way to Chris Hayes kind of vibes the whole thing. But it's always been a little bit like slightly underproduced. I think a lot of that's feeding off the Kornacki energy that we all love. But it just feels a lot more wheels off this year. And I don't know if it's because there's so many other networks airing at the same time that I'm trying to watch that are just way more buttoned down and way more kind of professionalized and feel way more like, you know, like CNN is like fully, fully swallowed up. I mean, they've always, listen, CNN had the full LED green screen, you know, Wolf Blitzer

walking on air vibe for the before, way before like ESPN did. But now they fully feel like, you know, the Super Bowl pregame show where there's just like 15 desks and everybody's on these like insane graphics and there's, you know, whatever. That feels a lot more heavily produced. And MSNBC just feels like this podcast a little bit. Yeah, except with like eight extra people trying to talk over me. Well, they put everybody at the desk tonight. Rachel Maddow, who's back.

She's back for election night. One night a week in regular time, but she's back for election night. Nicole Wallace, Joy Reed, Chris Hayes, and Alex Wagner were all at the desk. O'Donnell's there now. I mean, yeah. Lawrence O'Donnell tagged in? Yeah, he tagged in. I don't know who he displaced, but he's there.

Can't wait to hear what he has to say about tonight. Because I thought CNN, my complaint with all studio shows, mostly sports studio shows, but all studio shows, we just have too many people here. You need to pick two, maybe three people. So when CNN was keeping it tight with Tapper and John King, however awkward, it might have been once in a while. I was like, okay, we got two people and we can always throw it to somebody else. But MSNBC kind of had the whole Marvel universe there at the desk together. And they were all, as you said, kind of underplaying it. There was no Wolf Blitzer Manic Energy. It's kind of like a, kind of like a South by Southwest panel on a Punditry in the 21st century. They're all, yeah.

Yeah, it's true. They're all sort of channeling. like late stage Chris Matthews where it's just like there's an awkward silence and then somebody just like hollers a personal anecdote and then they go back to Cornackie. Yeah, that was the Chris Matthews specialty. I'm going to holler something that has happened to me right now. What did you think of Chris Wallace? Star of the acclaimed program, who's talking to Chris Wallace? going from Fox Megastar to guy at the third CNN desk. Well, it was nice to finally have an answer to the question who's talking to Chris Wallace. It was, I believe it was John King at one point.

No, who was sitting with him? Anyway, he was, he didn't great. He didn't find. It was just very unsettling to see him there. And I don't mean that as a knock on the guy, but like we don't really see, It's been a long time since we saw somebody like jump ship and get that sort of seat, you know? I mean, I guess there people jump around a lot. But he was, he's very, very, you know, identified, I think to all of us is the guy who hosts the Fox News coverage.

And now he's now he's just hanging out. And he's like, you know, like, like, you know, the wheeling out Tom Brokaw job over there. He was talking about Herschel Walker, benefiting from how good. Georgia football has been this year, something we brought up on the show yesterday. And he said, and maybe I just imagine this, but I swear he said, Georgia trucked Tennessee on Saturday. Wait, say that again, sorry. Georgia trucked Tennessee. Chris Wallace used the verb trucked.

Yeah. To describe a football game. And I was like, is Chris Wallace trying out for a ringer podcast? Yeah. Are you looking for something after CNN Plus blew up? Yeah, he was, yeah. Wallace is, he definitely feels a little bit more laid back. He was always sort of, obviously working that Fox job.

You kind of worried about saying the thing that's going to make somebody mad. I'm sure there's a much more direct line from like whatever, angry friends of the owner to the people who were on camera there. But, you know, it's nice to see him talking out there. Joe B in the comments said Is referencing the CB? Have you watched CBS at all tonight, Brian? I just popped over there for a second. He said they did a triple desk set up

where Nora got the anchor and then Bob Costa had a table of like of four opinion heads including Gail King. I love Gail King. Every time she would talk, that was my cue to change the channel. I realized I was doing it subconsciously because you know, CBS,

it's funny to watch the networks because they do have a lot of that vibe of, like the Super Bowl coverage that we would complain about where it was, sorry, the draft coverage that we were complaining about where it was like on the network, it was all like personal heartfelt stories of all these people. So, yeah, I mean, it's, that's what the Gail King voice sort of did for me. Bob Costa did quote the wire on the air.

We sort of brought the entire proceedings to a halt. everybody's just laughing. John Dickerson's just like, I don't really know what to say now. You know, it was absolutely trying out for a ringer podcast. Listen, you know, anytime you can drop the wire, you get our full approval. Over on CNN, did you note that Jake Tapper

was kind of the official results announcer person, but then they would go to the backup results announcers who were Boris Sanchez and Casey Hunt. Oh yeah sitting at another desk He'd be like I've got to take a break I've announced like three Senate races

Now I'm going to the backups Yeah It's no I thought I thought that was Actually when I first turned on tonight They were the hosts I think And then they and then it sort of Or that it's sort of like the curtain pulled back And it went back to Tapper

It was just a sort of it was a it was a It was a return to Oz sort of vibe there It's like it's like one of the one host reveals another host reveals another host. You never quite know who's in charge over there. Yeah, it's, it was, there's, I guess here's the thing. With so many people, I'm sure most of the world isn't flipping channels. Folks in the comment section, folks in the chat, are you flipping, flipping, flipping,

the way that we are like antically flipping, like we're watching Monday Night Raw and WCW Nitro at the same time? Or are you just picking a thing and going with it? because it's a flipping YouTube channel says, Craig. No, because it does feel like it doesn't do any great service to anybody if you make your one broadcast feel like you're flipping channels, right? Like, I'm flipping channels. I don't know.

Casey Hunt, another person who jumped ship from one company to another within the not too distant past. You kind of flip, you're like, I'm like, I don't even know what I'm watching right now. Like what is the identity of CNN except that they're just like going from, I guess it's John King and Jake Tapper at the thing, any other time, you know, there's just too many things going on. Yeah, and they have these little tricks to try to get you to stay on their network. One is that we will be watching this race closely. Yeah, I was watching. Which is something Wolf Blitzer.

Go ahead. Figured out. Like, we will be watching this race close. I was like, no, I know. This key Senate race, I know you will be keeping me up to date. I'm not sure what else you'd be doing. I was watching either ABC or CBS. I honestly don't remember which one it was,

but it was one of the networks, and they actually pulled, like, the teaser before a commercial break. They're like, after this break, we're going to give you the results of a governor's race we've all been paying very close attention to. And every single person who was watching that channel

must have at that moment just changed to CNN or MSNBC. Like, the results are in. You've just told us the results are in, and you're just not going to tell us for two and a half minutes? Like, it's crazy. Did they do the greenie tease? on election night? We got to tell Rosillo.

This is incredible. Yeah, I'm not sure if it was that, if it was that arch, but yes, they did, they did do a pretty deaf tease there. Another piece of election night television that I just love is them going to the correspondent who's at the victory party.

And first of all, there's always lame music playing in the background. The victory party never looks like a party. It never looks like, man, I wish I were there right now. Oh, yeah. Like when they show fans, and a sports bar cheering when their team's playing an away game,

you're like, oh, that'd be fun to be there. The political victory party has never, and I wish I were there a moment. No, no. Except for the presidential election, there's not, never. Listen, if anybody's going to have any fun, they're not going to be doing it at the official party.

Come on, we all know that. I think I went one time when I was at Slate. This must have been 2004. I got dispatched to the George W. Bush victory party. somebody else claimed the carry party. And I went to it. And first of all, there's all these ropes.

So the party is happening over here. But if you're in the press, you can only get this far. But there's other, like there's different degrees of clothes. It's like the rings of Saturn or something. Like you can. It's not like a club where you have entrance

into the special lounge or whatever. No, no, no. You're out. You're kind of watching people party. You're not mingling. you know, walking around with your notepad and people have champagne. Hey, how you doing? What do you feel about W's chances tonight? You're sitting at a rope begging people to come over and talk to you,

which very, very few people want to do. And that night, if you remember 2004, George W. Bush was not declared the winner on election night. Speaking of kind of a pointless party, it was like, oh, we got more votes to count. See you tomorrow. Oh my gosh. Thank you to Josh Horth in the comments. You just said it was David mirror on ABC News that tease the government result. I still don't know what he was talking about because I changed the channel. He's kind of the greeny of ABC News. Yeah. Very smooth on television. I mean, he's very, very good. But it's also, it's so strange. The network broadcasts on nights like tonight just feel like sort of beside the point. You know, like they have, listen, they have,

they're well stocked with commentators. I guess it's not a problem to get people on the screen. Although I'm always particularly perplexed about the NBC news thing because I'm sure there's a lot of very obvious reasons why they wouldn't just like run the same broadcast as MSNBC. I mean, I probably wouldn't run this MSNBC broadcast on NBC either. But like why, but like is there like a, is there like a draft when they get to pick the, to pick the news, the NBC news contributors who were going to be on the, who were going to be on the panels? clearly like Matt Owen Hayes are on MSNBC

but how did and Chuck Todd I guess is on NBC news proper although he has you know he's he's a very regular presence on MSNBC do you think how do you think they pick these things that's a good question I feel like it's flipped in our lifetimes that what used to be the A team became the B team yeah

just kind of like the big board used to be the B spot now the big board is the spot you want to be in. NBC used to be with Tom Brokaw back in the day. That's where I want to be on election night. Yeah. And then it became no, no, no. The MSNBC is the place where you want to go if you actually know about politics to hear a more sophisticated political discussion. So that's definitely flipped. As you say, it does not make any sense at all in 2020. It's not a silly group over there on NBC. You know, it's not like unrestpect. I mean, listen, if you're looking at the rosters, you're like, Andrea Mitchell is on MSNBC every day. But yes, but like, of course,

she will be on the NBC news broadcast. There's just something that feels right about that, right? But then Hallie Jackson, I guess she's there. Like, she, she's a volume shooter and she's not going to get her shots on MSNBC. Is that why she's on the NBC broadcast? I don't know, man. I don't know either. I don't know either.

I don't think I'd want to be on NBC. I don't think this is, I'm looking right now, Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie. This is, this is not the place I'd want to be. No. No, I mean, sure. But like, would you want to be on MSNBC trying to shoot your shot? Like trying to get, trying to like elbow your way in when Lawrence O'Donnell is in the middle of a mile along? I don't know.

Back to the victory parties for one second. So we go to the correspondent, the victory party. The victory party says one person close to the campaign told me that they are very bullish on their chances tonight. Now, first of all, is the person close to the campaign say, hey, we're screwed. We lost. Wait, someone told you that? No, I'm saying the, when you go to the correspondent on election night, oh, yeah, yeah. They're standing there, and this is their standup.

They say somebody close to the campaign, who they do not name, said they feel very good about their chances tonight to win this election. That is inevitably the report. I'm always like, if they thought they were going to lose, would they tell you? Answer, probably no. And number two, do we need the grant of anonymity from a campaign flack? who is saying that they think their candidate's going to win. Isn't that the kind of thing they're supposed to say on the record? Like what's your job, if not to go around saying,

we're going to have a marvelous victory tonight? I'm not sure if there's a lot of editorial oversight on these cutaways to the various victory parties, although, I mean, listen, everybody probably listened to my rants the past several weeks. Weirdly, these, like, cutaways of the victory parties have more like substantive policy cock than most of the other coverage that the networks do, like leading up to the race. So, you know, I mean, they're actually talking about issues. A shout out to New Mexico, by the way.

The Democratic governor just won the election there. There we go. It is weird. I'm guessing the people in the chat can attest to this. It is weird to watch the broadcast on mute, given that most, that there's a huge percentage of people like us who are like whether or not the volumes up we're mostly paying attention to our computers and our phones and not what's on the TV like the TV is the background noise it is very weird that it's you watch these things and it's so hard to follow the actual

content you just see cornacki waving his arms and it's like you look on the screen it says john fetterman 78.5 memmeda is 19.2 and it's like oh is that oh no this is like one county somewhere and this is being like described in great detail but it's not particularly helpful. No. You and I've had this muted for 40 minutes and I feel we haven't missed a thing by not having cable news on. Seth Moore asked where is Anderson Cooper? He was on a second ago. He was part of the seven person Starship Enterprise panel. I saw Snowbeard get in here second ago and say that Chris Christie, who's on ABC News, was wearing an I voted sticker on the set. Chris Christie joining

every single one of your friends in social media who posted that today? My God. Is there any bigger waste of everyone's time than the I voted? I voted. Here we go. You know,

I'm sorry, we got the celebrity ones out here in L.A. too. Do you see the one with Katie Perry yesterday for the L.A. mayor's race? Yeah. And Chris Pratt got in on that action

on behalf of Rick Caruso. I've been, ever since I moved to Princeton, New Jersey. I've been doing early voting. This is the first time I voted on Election Day, and I just went to like a firehouse down the road from my place. And I thought I was convinced it was the wrong spot because there was only three parking spots out front.

And I was like, what am I missing? But finally, I just pulled in, and it was, in fact, the right spot. And I guess there was never more than three people voting at a time. That's when you know you've really left the city. I just walked in and it was me. there was a woman in front of me with their kids and then they're like you know we were outnumbered by for the people who were there by the people who were working there by you know significantly and it was you know wonderful wonderful voting experience by you were outnumbered by the firefighters or

by the no there were no I didn't see any firefighters there were I think four maybe five poll workers there and there were just the two of us voting at the time but yeah it was uh I did not get a sticker. So I probably just missed it. I don't want to impugn the whatever the sticker system in Prince in New Jersey. They were doing a great job over there. Voting is such a, it's so anticlimactic in California because it's so easy to vote. They send you your ballot in the mail. You don't have to do anything. Yeah. And then you fill out your ballot and you go to a very handy little ballot catcher and you put your ballot in weeks before election day and you're all good. It is weird when you get, because my wife voted absentee.

And we, so we were just like, one day we were just like, we opened up the ballot. And listen, we're voting for pretty small bore stuff over here. It's like the school board elections are the big thing, right? And, you know, there's some representatives or whatever else. But like, you know, this is obviously isn't a presidential cycle and whatever. So, but we're looking at the ballot and we just start Googling everybody that we haven't heard of, right? And we're just like we're reading and we spent a good like hour and a half like going through with just making sure that like we're making the right choices.

And especially when you get to like specifically we get to weird stuff like school board where it's like everybody's kind of saying the same thing in different ways and you got to actually do a little deep dive. But it makes that and then when I went today, I was just like remind me who we liked. And so I went and voted for the right people. But it does show like for the vast majority of people, it's like you see the stuff on the news or whatever. it would be, and we all have phones, it would be super helpful.

It's actually a great idea for everybody to be voting absentee or to be, you know, would ever have the ballot mail to you. So you can, because everybody's got 30 minutes to sit down and Google these names and come to a decision as opposed to just going in and just being like, shit, man, I didn't know that any of these people were on the ballot. Absolutely. That's where it's important as you get into the more obscure races. Yeah, you don't want, we don't want to work.

Listen, everybody agrees we don't want a world where people are voting party lines. I mean, you might vote party line. Like after all of your research, you might, you know, that might be the result. But no, but like, it's, it's super helpful, man. I got an update from NBC. Chuck Todd is kind of doing a half-hearted big board. Like he's doing it, but he's not going full Kornacki. Just kind of gesturing half-heartedly at various house races.

Yeah. This is what you're talking about. Todd should have raised his, he was actually got too big a job. He should have raised his hand and go, no, no, I'm big board. Yeah. This is the job I was made for. Yeah. But all of a sudden, he was kind of over promoted and Steve Kornacki snuck into the

big board job became the huge star, the irreplaceable star of election night. It's true. Yeah, Chuck Todd is, it would probably be like America's like, like, most, like, favorite person. If he were just, if he were just the big board guy, the dry erase board, if he the drier race board. The Tim Russert board from 2000? No, what did Chuck Todd have? He didn't Chuck Todd have his own version of the dry race board?

I think it was honoring Russert, right? Right. But if he had just gone, if it had just been the dry race board evolves into the big board, that would have been a narrative we could all follow and fall in love with. One thing I missed. Why do all the big boards look the same? It's like sports, man. It's like everything regresses to this mean.

We're like, is it the same company? Not is it the same company or is it just a is it just like hey we need new graphics people. Oh look the guy that used to work at CNN is available and then they just cut or whatever or they all just copy each other because it's the easiest way to do it. I don't know man. It's it it's very strange. I'm not I don't mean this is a knock as a on Fox News but it totally is. Whatever this is going to be. Yes, you do. I understand why if you're Fox News you want to look like CNN when you do this shit, right? Like I understand why. If it's, you know, the perception of respectability is your number one objection on a night, like tonight. And you just, you want to look as, as, you know, buttoned up, buttoned down, whatever is possible. I get that. But like, what is it, like, did none of these networks, none of them, we have like 10 channels we're all watching right now. Does none of them think like, hey, maybe we should just do pink and purple or like, none of them, maybe a graffiti font would really catch people's eye. I don't know.

I just see everything looks exactly the same. So you're objecting to the red blue thing? No, no, no, we all know red and blue as part of the vernacular or whatever. No,

but the graphics all look the same. It's like there's so many graphics. This is what I'm saying. This is like if you, if you flip to a channel and it's not King, Tapper, Kornacki, Maddow,

whoever is doing Fox. I don't even think Harris Faulkner. Who's their main anchor over there? Is it Brett Beyer? But like it's, but like if it's not one of the people you immediately recognize, you could be on any other.

channel. That's the point. And I, for, for if you're, if you're behind the ratings, I guess that's a good thing. But if you're not, you know, I don't want to stand out. I just flipped over to Fox. They're at the Herschel Walker victory party. And there was a guy. Hershawker has not declared victory for the record. It's always a victory party until, you know, there's a decision either way. And the guy was standing there in like Chino's and the blue blazer with a tie. Mm-hmm. Mind of me when you and I used to live in Washington, D.C. For that brief ill-fated period.

Yeah. We go to a bar and every other guy looked like that. Yeah. That's the Herschel party. It's so funny. When we used to, I'm sure I've said this before on the show, but we used to live there, when people would ask me about, because I wasn't there for any kind of political thing. You worked for a magazine.

You kind of were. But when people used to ask me about living in D.C., I was just like, I think everybody should live in D.C. Go live there for six months or a year. Because you realize that, all these things we think really matter, all these like hidebound, like whatever, like the crazy, like political lines.

And again, this is early, early 2000s, like literally like 2002 or whatever, or 2001 to 2002. I was like, all those things that seem like they matter a whole lot, they don't actually matter, you know? It's like, because the people that are screaming at each other on TV

are like drinking together at the bar. And I thought that was a good thing at the time. And now I realize that this is all, that it's just, the fact that it's, all that it doesn't matter any of these people is what makes it so fucking terrible because they're all it's just like everybody's everybody's just like anne colter on steroids say i just use on steroids for you everybody's just like putting on a show yeah it's crazy uh if you'd like to

there is a commercial on fox news right now with sebastian gorka throwing a stick for his dog to fetch what is going on oh wait relief factor quick start. But wait, these are, aren't these the cheapo ads they have on like

during primetime normal should an election night be no idea bigger deal? Sebastian Gorka in much better shape than I had expected just seeing him

as a head. By the way, Abigail Spanberger won representative from Virginia. That was one of the races we were watching will it be a Republican wave races?

She has won tonight. That's an interesting result. We're going to do some live talking to our friends here in the listening world. want to get it on that, raise your hand and we will work a few of them. I want to give you David, some updates here real quickly before we do. The New York Times model is pretty bullish on John Federman right now, 75% win probability in Pennsylvania. Yeah. I mean, a lot

of the numbers that, listen, I haven't been paying attention to, I mean, in granular detail since we started talking, but it did sort of look like, like, there were some polls that pretty clearly said that that Oz had not been a guy, you know, that his, the fact that he didn't live in Pennsylvania was a problem for a lot of voters.

Uh, it, it, it, it, it seemed to be a, like a sort of issues, elections,

I think what they called it, because they, everyone was kind of voting with who they thought would, would do the things they, they liked, you know, follow the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, but nobody really thought that Oz is a great dude.

But it did seem like Oz's residency and Herschel walkers fill in the blank might just be the stuff that sort of tips the tip those two races. But we'll see Walker's running ahead in Georgia right now as we speak. Yeah, Times gives Herschel 58% chance to win. So that's still very, very close. Times is very bullish on Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, which did not seem like it was going to be unless it was a complete wipeout for the Democrats. Well, it didn't seem like it, but it did seem like it like two hours ago, right. I mean, there were there were whiffs. And yes, you're right. I mean, there's there's so many, everything that we're tracing, everything that we're tracking is a bellwether right now, right?

I mean, where we were when we started the show. So they're all about bellwethers all around. It doesn't it feel like, I mean, I don't know what, I don't know what to think about Georgia. Georgia is sort of like the Urr, Texas, you know, like we're going to, there's going to be a lot of, there's going to be these states that we're going to keep saying, it could go blue any point in time. And it's not. But Georgia did. Two Democratic senators from Georgia, this like, and if that happened in Texas, you and I's

head would explode. Yeah, but I think that we actually happened. Joe Biden won the state of Georgia. We forget. You're right. No, absolutely. And I think Georgia will, I mean, that's not in question. I think with Texas, though, we always think of it as a linear thing, right?

It's like at some point, Texas will go blue and then it will just get bluer and bluer and bluer. And Georgia is sort of, you know, obviously not the same state and certainly not the same demographics, but it sort of puts the light of that a little bit. I just feel like, listen, the swing states of our youth. I think if Federman wins tonight, the swing states of our youth have pretty clearly cast their ballots, you know, I mean, or, you know, put down their positions. Florida is just Miami date is gone for the Democrats, that Florida has gone for the Democrats. I mean, we, we've been seeing this over the last couple of cycles. Yeah. This thing was not really in the, not a swing state than anything but name anymore. Ohio has been pretty pretty damn red for the for a while to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Forget Obama won in Ohio. Imagine that.

Pennsylvania, you know, whatever. It'll continue to be right there on the line because it's, that's just the, I mean, the demographics, I mean, they're just so specific there. But I don't know, man. It does, doesn't it start to feel like all the swing states is just sort of pick sides? Like the swing, the swing states are in that swing? Like the, the next presidential election is just going to be decided. by like a rock paper scissors contest on the Pennsylvania, Ohio border, like two dudes are just

going to just go out there and just whoever calls paper is going to just take the presidency. It's, it's, it's, it's, man, it's just getting smaller and smaller. Mike Diamond tells us that ABC now has three people at three separate boards. So ABC is trying to outflank everyone else in terms of big boards to them. I was going to suggest more boards, but I thought that was too silly of a joke. Scott Rodkey says, Tonight I learned Arizona only has 15 counties. See, that's the kind of awesome factoid you learn in election night.

This is why we need the election big board nerd in our life. They know that stuff. There should be way more of that stuff. What is it they call it? Where do they call it? Is it New Hampshire? Where is it? No, no.

Where are they? Where's it they call them towns instead of counties that John King, hopefully told me earlier? I wish I'd remember it. But yeah, like all the elections. every election night should be like pop-up video. There's so many fun facts that we should be learning. Give it a whole vertical on the screen,

just like fun things that we can like remember and talk about tomorrow. Jason Kirk says all smiles on MSNBC right now. Is that good news? I mean, this is, by the way, something I kind of missed about us being in the inconclusive zone tonight is there's usually one network Fox or MSNBC that's the funeral parlor? Yeah, well, okay, so the MSNBC thing

is basically like these are the they were the people who were just white knuckled up until the I mean up until 30 minutes ago but up until the camera started rolling right they they were scared out of their mind that it was going to be a red wave

and the fact that it's not no matter what happens even if the Republicans win Congress or whatever it just there's just this sort of relief that everybody is everybody is just cracking up you know Does anybody want to talk to us? Raise your hand.

We'll let you on for your lukewarm takes about tonight's election, about cable news, whatever you want to talk about. I totally know what you're talking about when you have the white knuckle thing. Remember, it was, it was 04 where there were all those fake election polls, not election polls, fake exit. Oh, wait, am I the only host here? Do I have to let people in? You can let people in. Why don't you do it?

All right. Sorry, go ahead. You want to finish your election poll thing? No, no. But there was that white knuckle look on Fox, remember? because there were the drudge report exit polls that said Kerry was going to be Bush and everybody looked tense and then Bush won the election anyway.

All right, we're going to go to Jackson Parker. Jackson, here we go. This is your first caller. You've got to get this together. First time, long time. Jackson, you're on the air. Hey guys, first time, long time. Like y'all said, love the show. I'm from Texas as well.

Currently living in the Metroplex area. And I'm a little bit uneducated on a lot of the political stuff. It's kind of why I listen to the pod. And I've been at like class and work all day. And I'm just kind of checking in. And I'm just curious where things are looking. I mean, I know the red wave was like a big projection,

but I haven't really been following things super closely. I just saw something about J.D. Vance winning Ohio or whatever. But I was just wondering how, how y'all think the night has gone so far. Yeah. So we're still in a little bit of limbo. I think the answer is, David. And we could go to a point where Republicans do come away with. the house, which is very, very likely, and do come away with a one or two or maybe three

seat advantage in the Senate. But it feels like the big red wave fear or prediction, which by the way, it was even in like the New Yorker this week, is may not happen. Now, of course, I say that and then it'll, you know, the votes will come in, something weird will happen tonight. But that feels like about where we are. What do you think? Yeah. To, you know, coin a phrase. I think that's right. Did somebody call it for JD fans? I know he's way in the lead right there.

But it's, it's, it does. It feels just sort of like, I think the MSNBC panel says it all. I feel like it's just, it's not as much of red waves as it looks like. Now look, I mean, if Republicans get the Senate,

then that's a huge deal. If they maintain the House and if they take the House and the Senate, sorry. but you know I think that we're going to I think we immediately go to narrative tomorrow and the narrative is going to be

you know what it's going to be I mean it doesn't mean I don't think it's going to affect Mitch McConnell's plans for like you know torpedoing our country but I think that the narrative tomorrow is going to be this was a referendum on the Biden presidency the editor's note, it was not. And it was not as bad as it was projected to be.

I think that's what everybody's going to be saying. How seriously should we take this Lauren Boberg race? She is losing by four percentage points in her Colorado House district. I saw that. 5248 was 69% of the vote. And again, hard to tell where that vote's coming from. Should we dial up some other people here, David, on our open phones here in the middle of the night?

Let's do it. Let's see who's got to who. Jake Locker with Jake. Legendary University of Washington quarterback. It's spelled differently, but yes. Jake, if you're on, you can talk. Hey, how's it going? Good.

How are you, sir? Solid, solid. So you guys are flipping around a lot. Which anchor do you think is most excited to be a part of the election night tonight that you've seen? Ooh, most excited to be part of election night tonight. This is a great question. Hold on. Oh, sorry, I just cut Jake off.

Jake asked to speak again. I just cut you. I thought you were done talking. Brett Bear looked pretty excited when I flipped by Fox News. Brent Bear has no, does not have the ability to show excitement. Jake Tapper's in kind of a weird zone because he's obviously engaged and happy to be here, but he's also,

do you see that note that he's leaving prime time? No, he is. They put him into the, you know, 9 o'clock hour on CNN, and now he's leaving the 9 o'clock hour on CNN, and now he's leaving the 9 o'clock. o'clock hour. By the way, Gavin Newsom just won the California gubernatorial election in case there was any doubt. Everybody's been watching that one. Thank you CNN for teasing that one. It's a good question. I think that it's, you know, I mean, you think like Alex Wagner should be super excited, but she just seems like totally comfortable in her seat. I think it's the NBC crew.

Wait, regular NBC? Yeah, I think it's regular. Savannah Guthrie? I think it's Savannah Guthrie. I think that she's the most excited to be there. All right, who else can we bring in? Joe B. Joe? What do you get to say? I have been following this a little bit closer. And the, I guess some of the interesting things is, you know, the Northeast and some of that is looked better for Democrats versus, you know, back in Florida, not so good. what do you think are the reasons for people being excited or not excited about, you know, talking about this election and really getting involved?

Like, if we're talking about it, you know, being a democracy or whatever, you know, you can go over to Ben of Arc Media and hear about all the proud boys and stuff down to Miami, but they're making inroads. Like, how do you feel like political discourse is changing and do you feel like there's, you know, media people were actually keeping up with this because, you know, we look around and a lot of the people talking are not necessarily relevant to the cutting edge. I was happy to see our friend Ben Collins, friend of the pod, Ben Collins on the disinformation desk tonight on MSNBC, who was talking about this alternate conversation that's happening about politics. Friend of the pod and the worst thing that ever happened to journalism and media, according to Glenn Greenwald. But, you know, it's amazing because he came on and did, you know, a tight 10 minutes with Rachel Maddow and was like,

so here, here's what people are talking about online right now, especially in the conservative, Trumpy, nether world of politics. And it's a completely different discussion that's happening on television. Yeah. Like it's, and it's not even being conducted on the same terms. They want to win elections. They maybe want Trump to run again and win again. But it's just not being, it's not happening.

in conventional electoral terms, like I am fired up about abortion. I am fired up about crime, quote unquote. I'm fired up about this. No, no, no. That whole system is just kind of its own thing. And I was glad to see some of that at least come into mainstream coverage tonight. There's a couple of things going on in Florida. Obviously, the redistricting is changing the way that votes are going to be counted there and the way that victory is really defined. I think Ron DeSantis as a political figure, but I think really significantly the talk about him as as the as a potential president really reshapes the local politics i think that would happen in any state um because there really is a sort of sort of you know magnetic aspect of the whole thing and it's

sort of and it and it and it galvanizes the whole party obviously his his a lot of the his legislative quote unquote achievements have been have been red meat you know stuff for the far for the far right of the party and and that certainly helps get people out, you know, those sort of fear mongering that he's been a big part of, help people get out to vote. But I'm not going to pretend to understand Miami-Dade, and I'm not going to pretend to understand most of what goes on in that state. It's a wild state, both in terms of politics and culture in general.

And I think that there's probably just an incredible book to be written. There's a dispatch whoever the 30-year-old Thomas Frank is to Florida for a couple years and just let him write this book because whatever's happening there is. I mean, I would read the hell out of it. Can we remember for a second that Obama won Florida twice? Yeah. Like, whoa. I think that there's, this is, we have a couple people who want to talk,

but I think that there's a bigger conversation to be had about, we always talk about how you can't, you can't run for president. If you're, you have to be kind of new on the scene to run on, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to become president, right? You either, at this point, I think you have to be an Obama or a Trump. You got to just sort of come out of nowhere and just be like, because you, the, myth-making machine can get behind you and you can sort of become this whole thing. And once you've been a senator for a while, senators never get elected president, right?

It's like you got the whole book is written on you. And also, people in your own party had the knives out for, even if they don't mean it, right? I mean, it's like, like, if AOC runs for president, they're going to have all this, like, fodder from other people in Congress in the Senate who, like, worked alongside her, who were also Democrats who've, like, talk shit about her over the years, right? because people buy into the, buy into the caricatures and to sort of use that against people as they, as they, you know, have their, or in their formative years. And I, I think that the part, all this is to say, I think the parties should get more

into, I think the Democrats to get more into like, like unified mythmaking. Just pick your candidate, get them out there, get them over. It's like, it's like, we don't, like, Hulk Hogan left the territory. Let's find another good looking blonde kid and just make him our star. And that might actually, you know, work. Because, yeah, it works. When there's a wave, it really, really works. The only thing about a wave is you all got to agree it's a wave.

Anyway. A couple other updates. Greg Abbott has beaten Beto O'Rourke tonight in Texas. That's official. Seemed predestined to happen, but it is official. Also, have we heard from Trump tonight? Has he been declaring victory on true social or somewhere else? We'll take a look.

We had a couple people in the waiting room. Let's let Nick Peek get in here and ask a question. What's up, Nick? All right. Well, I'm watching CNN, and I noticed during a recent commercial break, it was maybe two breaks or three breaks ago, that during the entire commercial break, they had a picture in picture in the bottom left hand corner live of a Detroit, Michigan ballot counting center with no person in the frame. It was just an empty table with two chairs. And it begs the question, who was that for?

this is like the golf picture and picture we get in golf tournaments now when there's a commercial oh yeah oh yeah it's like oh well we can't cut away from this very exciting election counting table in Detroit and it's for some people it's like oh well you know there's no shenanigans going on watch the picture of an empty table where no one's counting there at the same time why even why even have it up because in some point that just reminds people and like feeds to the narrative and are those people even watching CNN? So I'm just very confused and I wanted your reaction as to who you thought that empty table of a live shot in Detroit might be for.

Was Arizona this week, David, remind me that allowed press in to watch the... I was about to say, I think it was Arizona. There's a couple of places that are doing this, like, you know, put the camera in the ballot counting rooms or whatever right now. First of all, who is this for? Is a very good question. Yes.

it's clearly not for anybody of our generation who have from numerous movies and television programs come to understand that this stuff's really easy to fake. All you got to do is just take the footage like Ocean's 11 from the day before and run that today and make it look like the balance are being counted fresh. But yeah, it's if there are, if anyone feels better because those cameras are there, then I guess it's doing their job, you know? I mean, I, I mean, I, it's, it's, it's, um, if there are, I think that for- But no one feels that way. No one, no one who's worried, no one who's worried, quote-unquote, worried about shenanigans, quote-unquote, in the ballot center is going to be satisfied. I'm going to say this in the lightest way possible.

There are a lot of people who I know who are just incredibly conspiratorial, but in the most, like, lightweight way possible. And if you can just say the one thing, you know, they're stealing the vote. If you can just say, oh, but they let the cameras in this year, then that's enough for them. Well, then I'm all for it. By the way, Maggie Hassan was just called by CNN and Brian Kemp, winning re-election as governor of Georgia over Stacey Abrams. Who else we got to talk to us, David? Jason Kirk. Jason, jump in.

Hold on. Now jump in. Hey, Jason. You guys make a long commute tolerable, so I appreciate it. And yes, that is the famous Dick's camera. as called out by so I think of a lot in Posse on Broadway. Just wanted a couple observations tonight that I really enjoyed. One is every hour on the hour when, you know, the polls closed in a collection of states.

There's the flourish of trumpets and some kind of graphic of, you know, flying over the capital or whatever. And then they initial, the medial we rattle off ten races. and they're all too close to call, shockingly enough, those holes close right that second. And then even better, some of them, they double down,

they're like, well, it's too close to call, but we can say that such and such a candidate is leading. Yeah. You know, it's been a lot of fun tonight. Thanks, guys.

I love the pole close as the day new ma. You know, like, okay, the polls have closed. They're like, but we don't know anything. Unless it's like Marco Rubio winning re-election, which we weren't worried about anyway. By the way, Josh Shapiro has just won his race for governor of Pennsylvania.

That's a big one. He was expected to win, but that's a big, big one for the Democrats there. Who else we got, David? Paul in a, Paul. Wait, this is a reference to the ticket in Dallas, so I'm already in here. Here we go. Gentlemen, great to have you on tonight. first time, long time.

So we've had a lot of election talk tonight, and I wanted to get to a more pressing subject, which is, okay. What do you all think about the old gray wolf competing with a little ticket over at 971 in the pre-season days? We'll deal with this. For one minute, really quickly, David,

this is sports radio drama in Dallas. I'm not aware of any of this stuff. I'll just put this in the broadest terms so the people can enjoy it. Imagine a guy who found, founded the highest rated sports radio station in Dallas, who was the drive time host in the afternoon, who retired to great fanfare and goodbye,

you had a great career, then going across town literally and figuratively and starting a new sports radio station or becoming the face of a new sports radio station to compete with the old one. Oh, okay. And what's happening? It's like, if you were on a competing media podcast,

and I was like, dude, did you really, you could have left, you could have retired. But did you really have to go on a competing media podcast doing overworked Twitter jokes and funny headlines? Taking away my livelihood over here. And is there is there is is a is there a winner? There's not a winner yet. It's too early to tell. Oh.

What do you think? As they say, as they say, we will be watching this race closely. Thank you, Paul for your call. Appreciate that. No problem. Appreciate it, guys. Big strong P1 over here. All right, Dave, we're going to, can we squeeze a few more in before we

call tonight? Yes, we absolutely can. Let's see what we got over here. Wait, Jake Locker is back in. I cut him off earlier, so I'm going to let him, I'm going to let him finish in case you want to hear more from Jake anyway. Jake, welcome back to the show. By the way, speaking of sports radio, I just had to get this in. I meant to text you this since we're talking

right now. I'm just going to do it. I was, during the World Series, when things were looking good for the Phillies, God rest their souls. I was listening to Angelo in the morning over here. Brian's written beautifully about him and just Angelo Gataldi, just the legend of Philly Sports Radio. Oh my God. And he was talking about everybody chanting cheater at the Astros.

And there was a caller named Gina. And somehow, this is not a joke. Somehow Derek Jeter came up in the discussion. And the way that Angelo said cheater, Gina and Jeter were all the exact same word. And it was the most incredible thing I've ever heard in my life. not know what the fuck he was talking about and it was glorious anyway anyway hello jig what's up guys i just wanted to come in and uh give a quick shout out to the ticker on the lower lower portion of every screen which is communicating 10 times more information than the actual language it's uh doing a great

job it's always the MVP and i honestly learn more from it than i do the people talking on screen for four hours so I agree though. The one on CNN has a little bit of gas station TV design to it where there's just a few too many things happening or taxi cab TV in New York. It's like, what am I looking at? What's going on here? We've got the libertarian governor of Canada and Georgia governor's race. Somebody who's watching CNN.

It looks like that they have Dana Bash and Chris Wallace and Abby Phillips like explaining a way Democrat losses right now. but I'm really engaged with their facial expressions. Tristan Abraham, what do you got for us, man? Hello, hello. First time, long time. Thank you. From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania here.

There we go. Something, you know, bizarre political ad. Tristan, you get to pick the next president. You get to be part of the rock, paper, scissors. Tristan, personally? We've become quite the political pawn here. Everyone comes here for their big speeches. But our longtime representative, Mike Doyle, retired, leaving the House seat open.

And running for that seat is a progressive Democrat. But the Republican nominated is also named Mike Doyle. So I kind of wanted to hear your reactions. Many of the political ads leading up to tonight were just our old representative, you know, Mike Doyle saying he's not the Mike Doyle running. It's an incredible race, an incredible political predicament. I'm looking at the Times right now, Somerly leading 56 to 44 with 94% of the vote in.

So it looks like fake Mike Doyle might not pull through tonight. It's, you know, one of the things, comments on it before, but one of the things that just amazes me more than anything else since the beginning of this podcast, when you start staring at stuff like this, taking all this stuff a little bit more seriously than you do as a lay person is the power of incumbency.

And it's sort of like so many things. Look at the big boards over these networks. So many things are so granularly defined. And incumbency is just inexplicable. I mean, it's explicable. People vote for the person they know or whatever. But just the power and the weight that it has is crazy. And when you can do the name thing,

we've seen this over and over again and not necessarily for evil, right? I mean, it's just like the son or daughter. of an existing representative will run in their place or the or the wife, husband if somebody passes away. We've seen all those shenanigans in Florida where people who just like, they just put people with like vaguely famous names on ballots or whatever and just hope the people will vote for them. People do vote that way.

It looks like it's not going to happen in Pittsburgh, which is, I guess, for the best. I guess. It was just certainly for the best. CNN just called the Ohio Senate race for J.D. Vance. I just, I'm surprised. that he won. I'm surprised that the Democrats lost that election, but I'm more surprised. I just can't believe J.D. Vance is going to be a part of our lives. I just, just as a, like, a character on Twitter and a character in our, in American life, that is going to be, who, enjoy the next six years.

Jeremy Watson, what do you got to say, man? A long time. I hope you're doing well tonight. We are, sir. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. So I'm a fellow Southern California residents. So I'm curious if there's any races here that Brian's really cued into. But also more importantly, who's the leader in the clubhouse for the old guy still got it right now? That's a really good question. So it's not going to be Joe Biden's coattails. Oh, sorry, I just cut them off. So are we looking for an election specific old guy still got it? I think so. Well, it doesn't look like Trump's coattails are going to mean a whole lot. Although that's the thing that everyone's going to be talking about tomorrow, right?

Because Trump's, you know, obviously hinting at another presidential run. He's going to continue to do it. And he's going to work himself into a shoot on this one again. You know, he's probably talking about running to try to make it look like the FBI investigation is a sham and blah, blah, blah. Now he's going to end up having to be, you know, run for president again because he can't get himself out of it and he can't talk himself out of it. But there does seem, there is this weird dynamic to the Trump endorsements, right? Where it's like Trump endorses somebody and their performance will rebound and affect Trump, right? Or at least there will be, there will be a discussion about whether or not it affects Trump.

And he's picked some, you know, front runners that probably he, that he'll have very little functional effect in the race. But he also picked some underdogs. Not a lot of them appear to be winning right now, but I guess we'll see that. We'll take a look at that. But then there's also this Trump effect where if someone like John Federman can eat into the Trump to the Trump numbers, right, can like outperform the Democrat in a state that Trump, you know, whether or not Trump won or lost, then it sort of lights the way for potentially for like whoever's running opposition to Trump, be it in the Republican Party or the Democrat Party in the next election. And then obviously anytime his candidate loses, that's a sort of, you know, if his hand-picked candidate loses, then there can be a more lightweight discussion about what that means about Trump's power. But I do think the lighting the way thing is sort of, and it's going to be an interesting part of the conversation going forward. We have a media member who wanted to remain anonymous that said Trump's new nickname for Ron DeSantis.

Remember he tried out Ron DeSanctimonious? It should be Ron DeSanctimonious. DeSantis. She's a pretty good straight and pun if you think about it. By the way, to answer the question, L.A. mayor's race, Karen Bass and Rick Caruso, looked like Karen Bass was cruising to a victory. Then we had that poll about a week ago that just scared the hell out of

Karen Bass's supporters, that weird late celebrity sort of, you know, convergence on the Caruso campaign. I'm really, really fascinated to see who wins that race. later tonight. Let's do a couple more questions before we sign off. Kyle Daman, what do you got for us, ma'am? I was just wondering how, like, what are the chances both parties declare victory tomorrow and kind of the narrative side? So even if, you know, Democrats end up with 49 in the Senate, do they still say they held off the red wave or, you know, anything short of the Democrats taking both houses. Would the Republicans still say they won?

Well, the key if you're the president, is to come up with the right verb. Remember, with George W.O. was a thumping? You have to give that press conference. That was a thumping? And with Obama, was it a shalacking? Did he say shalacking? That feels right. I think that the short answer is that both parties will definitely declare victory. If there's not a wave, if there's not a demonstrable wave, then of course you declare victory. It's like the end of a boxing fight where everybody puts their hands up in the air.

You know, I mean, but there's no, you know, official judge's ruling in this one. But I think that everybody will declare a victory. And I think, and then Joe Biden will come out and he'll be like, well, you know, the Republicans won some seats and I'm still going to work with them just like I was working them before.

I'm looking forward to have the Mitch McConnell over for hamburgers later and all the rest of the Democrats are going to go apeshit because he's not towing the party line about how much of a shocking pseudo victory it was for the Democrats. Everyone's going to declare victory. I think that goes without saying. A couple more. Vishnu Singh.

Vishnu? Hello. I just had some thoughts here, or I wanted to know your guys' thoughts, I should say, on local propositions here in California. In particular, I was wondering about the online gambling thing, which I haven't seen in numbers recently, but I thought it was projected to lose and lose badly, and I was somewhat surprised about that.

In my opinion, the campaign was kind of off. A lot of focuses on Indian tribes and homelessness, and I don't know, just one of your thoughts about that. Yeah, just being a resident here and a TV consumer here, the commercials,

they're two different online gambling propositions. So, and they were both, there were negative ads about both of them, which I think, again, just looking at it from my point of view, created this weird feeling in people's minds that they should vote against both of them.

And I would not be surprised if both of them go down for that very reason. The proposition system like that is so effed. I mean, it's nobody knows, even if you feel strongly about the vote, half the people show up to the poll and they don't know if they should be voting yes or no, right? And I feel like in a lot of cases, it's not just that those, that these referendums are won and lost and that on, you know, money spent on commercials. It's one and loss in the people that write the verbiage that goes on the ballot because you get there and you're looking at it and you're like, I know what I want and I don't know which way to vote, right? Like I like I it's it's pretty it's pretty crazy.

I've read a little bit about the about that about that this particular proposition and it it will it is it just feels it feels like a sort of failure of governance. But I don't know. I mean, everybody's going to be able to vote. I mean, everyone's going to be able to gamble online at some point. It just feels, what a bizarre situation that is. Let's do Parker Hendricks. We get time for two more, Brian? Sure.

Yeah. Hey, guys, I just, quick question. How bad do you think things have to get for the Democrats to stop using actors from the West Wing for commercials? I love Josh Lyman. but I don't know if I need Bradley Whitford in 24 stumping for me. Yeah, what do we think the salience of West Wing commercial is in this point in history? That's a long time ago, man. Yeah, this is a very like old head PR consultant.

This is like you call it like, you call it James Carville and you're like, what do you think we should do? And he's just like, is Bradley Whitford available? Bradley Whitford is actually playing a very morally compromised character on, wait, what's it called? On the Handmaid's Tale right now. I'm not sure if he's the best look. Did you see Get Out? Not really the guy that we want, you know, the character we want screaming for our party? Yeah.

I think that we can all agree in a very like, everybody listening to this show that we could probably agree that having celebrities in general, cut commercials for your cause is not a good thing. For the Democrat cause, especially, because it's, it's, it's, it just seems sort of pandering, even if you're pro and it seems, you know, it kind of fits all the cliches if you're anti, you know, but I don't know, maybe it works. I don't look at that. I don't have access to these numbers. I saw Julie Louis Dreyfus tweeting for Karen Bass and was like, there's an effective

celebrity endorsement. There we go. Julia Louis Dreyfus. Yeah. But like, you know, do you really, Julie Lou Dreyfus has a very specific cue rating, you know? I mean, it's not. That's what I mean.

That's different than, yeah, no, no. I mean, I don't know. Like, do I care who like Richard Schiff is voting for, Alison Janney? Not particularly. Yeah, that's it. Let's do one more and then we'll do the headline. All right.

Local team is the last person in the request. So local team, you're up, man. It's kind of a strange journey here. Here we go. local teen are you there unmute yourself just hit the unmute hit that microphone button and start talking oh he disappeared all right no a fitting ending all right david it's time for the election night edition of david shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline oh god i had no idea this was coming but i will i will do my required light applause a light applause and you will do your duty as constitutionally

demanded of you. Monday's headline about European countries turning to South Korea for arms deals was better call Seoul. Today's headline comes from Andrew Graning. It's from Puck, which is throwing some pretty funny headlines out there. It's about the new CNN head,

Chris Light, spelled L-I-C-H-T, but pronounced light. He's making lots of cuts at CNN. We've talked about all the various moves he's made there to try to make CNN more palisive. he says to mainstream viewers, nonpartisan viewers, that sort of thing. This is about Chris Light's leadership of CNN,

and I want you to think of beloved children's books. What was Puck's strained pun headline? A light in the attic? I mean, what is the children's... We're done, folks. Okay. You gave me too much. I thought if I didn't say Shell Silverstein,

it would take a second. A light in the attic. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Cervantes. Thank you, Erica. As always,

the press box is back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. Thanks, everybody for joining us.