Wednesday Night TV
It was certainly an interesting evening parked in front of the TV set last night. First was the half-hour "infomercial" for Barack Obama. He's got my vote, so I tuned in just out of curiosity. I have no idea if it accomplished what he wanted it to do, which must have been to reassure the heartland that he's not a wild-eyed zealot. It opened with amber waves of grain, for Pete's sake, and then featured struggling families from Missouri, Ohio, New Mexico and Kentucky, which I'm sure was no coincidence (Kentucky is the only state of those he seemingly has no shot in).
He also spoke from a wood-paneled office that may or may not been designed to look presidential. I think it looked more Camp David than Oval Office, as it had kind of a woodsy feel. But I think more and more voters have grown comfortable with who he is.
The ad also didn't mention John McCain. There wasn't a scrap of negativity in it. So while McCain and Palin go around the country bringing up Palestinian professors (McCain is also associated with him, for what it's worth) and bad-mouthing fruit fly research that actually helps autistic children, Obama can take the high road.
I would consider myself confident at this point, but you can never be sure. McCain seems strangely chipper, maybe he's at peace with losing and is putting on a happy face so Republicans don't get depressed and stay home, thus causing more GOP bleeding in the congressional races. Or maybe he knows something, like how voting machines are rigged. Who knows. It should be all settled at shortly after eight o'clock on Tuesday night. If Obama wins Virginia, that should be it, and especially if he wins Pennsylvania.
After the Obama special, I tuned in for the truncated end of the World Series game. It was certainly odd to see the first pitch of an evening of baseball occur in the bottom of the sixth inning. This was the first ever suspended World Series game, and all told it took over forty-eight hours for this game, which started on Monday night, to be completed. If you add the two nights together, it was a good game, with the Phillies taking two leads and the Rays tying, and then the Phillies went ahead for good in the seventh. The key play of the game was when Chase Utley psyched Jason Bartlet into trying to score in the seventh inning on a grounder, and then threw him out at home.
Between innings (and pitching changes, which seemed to occur every other minute) I flipped over to MSNBC. I've taken to watching the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow shows on that network, which are unabashedly liberal, a left-wing version of Fox News. Olbermann is pleasantly acerbic, and while he does tend to go overboard at times in his vitriol, is droll fun, especially his "Worst Person in the World" segments, which inevitably cite Bill O'Reilly (I cracked up when Olbermann referred to him as the "Frank Burns of TV news"--so true!). Maddow is also extremely liberal, in the tank as they say for Obama. I like her segment called "Talk Me Down," in which she airs her fear of the dark menace of the right wing and has some expert allay her concerns. Last night it was about all this talk of "tightening" polls. I'm out on the ledge with you, Rachel, thanks for empathizing.
The game ended at just before ten o'clock, so I was able to watch the last out without worrying about how little sleep I was going to get, which was a relief. Of all the problems in baseball, this may be one of the worst--the late hour that these games go to on the East Coast. As much as I can loathe ESPN, I wish they (or some other cable outfit) would buy the post-season and then start the game at like seven-thirty, to give people a chance to watch these things.
He also spoke from a wood-paneled office that may or may not been designed to look presidential. I think it looked more Camp David than Oval Office, as it had kind of a woodsy feel. But I think more and more voters have grown comfortable with who he is.
The ad also didn't mention John McCain. There wasn't a scrap of negativity in it. So while McCain and Palin go around the country bringing up Palestinian professors (McCain is also associated with him, for what it's worth) and bad-mouthing fruit fly research that actually helps autistic children, Obama can take the high road.
I would consider myself confident at this point, but you can never be sure. McCain seems strangely chipper, maybe he's at peace with losing and is putting on a happy face so Republicans don't get depressed and stay home, thus causing more GOP bleeding in the congressional races. Or maybe he knows something, like how voting machines are rigged. Who knows. It should be all settled at shortly after eight o'clock on Tuesday night. If Obama wins Virginia, that should be it, and especially if he wins Pennsylvania.
After the Obama special, I tuned in for the truncated end of the World Series game. It was certainly odd to see the first pitch of an evening of baseball occur in the bottom of the sixth inning. This was the first ever suspended World Series game, and all told it took over forty-eight hours for this game, which started on Monday night, to be completed. If you add the two nights together, it was a good game, with the Phillies taking two leads and the Rays tying, and then the Phillies went ahead for good in the seventh. The key play of the game was when Chase Utley psyched Jason Bartlet into trying to score in the seventh inning on a grounder, and then threw him out at home.
Between innings (and pitching changes, which seemed to occur every other minute) I flipped over to MSNBC. I've taken to watching the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow shows on that network, which are unabashedly liberal, a left-wing version of Fox News. Olbermann is pleasantly acerbic, and while he does tend to go overboard at times in his vitriol, is droll fun, especially his "Worst Person in the World" segments, which inevitably cite Bill O'Reilly (I cracked up when Olbermann referred to him as the "Frank Burns of TV news"--so true!). Maddow is also extremely liberal, in the tank as they say for Obama. I like her segment called "Talk Me Down," in which she airs her fear of the dark menace of the right wing and has some expert allay her concerns. Last night it was about all this talk of "tightening" polls. I'm out on the ledge with you, Rachel, thanks for empathizing.
The game ended at just before ten o'clock, so I was able to watch the last out without worrying about how little sleep I was going to get, which was a relief. Of all the problems in baseball, this may be one of the worst--the late hour that these games go to on the East Coast. As much as I can loathe ESPN, I wish they (or some other cable outfit) would buy the post-season and then start the game at like seven-thirty, to give people a chance to watch these things.
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