Tonight's TV

I'll be interested to see how tonight's TV coverage goes. If Obama wins Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania by 9 p.m., will they call it? Or try to build some false drama for a McCain rally? Usually there's a race to be first. It will be interesting to see what happens. Could they call the election before California closes? What if Obama rolls up 215 early on? Everyone knows he's winning Cali. Do you call it then, and maybe lose viewers steadily as the night goes on? I dunno.

I'll say this for some corners of the national media: They've gone out of their way to keep McCain in the game. In general, the media love a good story, and an Obama blowout, at least for tonight, is just about the worst story. A close election, and dramatic comeback or hold-off, is a much better storyline tonight. That's why Pennsylvania is suddenly back in play. McCain has shown a twitch of life there, so it's suddenly a state he can win and create some more avenues to 270. We'll see.

Part of the talk of keeping McCain alive is that the polls might be wrong. In some states, where polling has been going non-stop for weeks and months, that seems difficult to imagine. And consider this: fivethirtyeight.com (yes, I love that site) reported this afternoon that its database includes 2,077,765 interviews. What an amazing figure. If the polls are off, the poll system is so horribly broken, it's scary. But is the poll system really that broken? I guess we'll find out tonight, but considering the width and breadth of polling, that's tough to imagine.