Okay, we've read the overnights, and we know that Obama had 'em glued to the tube like NOTHING in recent TV history.
In a few days, McCain will get his shot at matching the Obama-thon.
Call the tour McCain-a-Looza.
Picture a rock guitarist from the sixties, trying to whip it up one more time in a hotel ballroom, with a new lead singer so the younger fans can kind of relate. This will be after opening acts featuring the snore-fest of Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney, Laura and George W. Bush.
Obama, meanwhile, does another Woodstock, and there are already more people claiming to have been there than the place can hold.
Over
Bottom line, Obama draws huge TV numbers, and if McCain doesn't come reasonably close to matching them, McCain is toast. The networks will make the decision. Maybe they'll make it consciously and in secret, or maybe unconsciously, but they go where the money is, and they smell it now.
You've already voted. You did it last night.
(Do not interpret that as overconfidence. GOTV!)
I expect the networks to start giving Obama more exposure overall if that's possible, but also more positive exposure, as long as that leads to good ratings. Some of the anchors are already in the tank for Obama, and I mean that in a good way. They know good TV when they see it, and if a wave develops even FOX will jump aboard rather than be left out in the cold. It's not like they want to miss out on a demographic shift in viewing habits, and they measure that stuff more accurately and more quickly than ANY political pollster. Maybe last night's "remote vote" WAS the vote that counted.
Say that one network has a program about a grouchy old grump who talks nonstop about his war wound, let's call him Uncle Dud, and his partner Mary Tyler Moore, who tends to dither when excited, and in the same time slot on another network a smiling, engaging and vigorous man we'll call Barack West, his beautiful and accomplished wife Emma Peel West, and his fatherly sidekick and constant source of great lines named Joe, as they save the world in an hour each week.
Who makes better TV? We'll know soon, because the networks will be keeping track.
Did you REALLY believe the twenty-something girl fell for sixty three year old Roger Moore when he was 007? Would you believe 0072?