I find this Conan O’Brien vs. NBC thing so riveting, especially now that Conan has released a statement saying he won’t do The Tonight Show if it airs at 12:05. Oh my god! Drama!! What’s gonna happen?

Seriously, I do think it’s riveting. Jeff Zucker has really driven NBC into the ground. When I was a kid, NBC was the network to watch. My parents watched The Today Show with Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley every morning while having breakfast or getting ready for work. At night, NBC had all the great sitcoms that kids my age enjoyed: Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Gimme a Break, even Punky Brewster. On Saturday mornings it had the Smurfs. When I was an adolescent, I would watch Days of our Lives and Santa Barbara. As I got a little older, NBC had Family Ties, and then The Cosby Show, and then Friends and Seinfeld. Even today, it has some great comedies on Thursdays: 30 Rock and The Office. And we watch Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News every night.

I used to feel this weird loyalty to NBC, even though it was just a TV network. I felt like the three networks had personas. Even though I watched some CBS and ABC shows, watching CBS and ABC felt like going over to a friend’s house where everything seemed slightly off. NBC just seemed like the network that had everything I liked.

But Jeff Zucker has ruined NBC: first the horrible but cheap-to-produce reality shows, and then this debacle of Jay Leno at 10 p.m. Moving Leno to 10 p.m. was a risk, and while it’s true that if you don’t take risks, you don’t get anywhere, you also don’t mess with something on TV that works. Zucker messed with something that worked. Jay Leno at 10 p.m. is New Coke.

On the rare occasions when I’ve watched Leno on TV, I’ve found him annoying and boring. But for whatever reason, lots of people like him — as long as he’s on at 11:35 and not at 10. You can make fun of the public for liking him, but really, what’s the point? Many people like things that I don’t, and vice versa.

And I have to admit, I watched Leno’s final Tonight show last May and was entertained. He did a “best of” compilation of those idiots on the street who don’t know the answers to questions, and it was pretty funny.

But these days I’m generally ready to go to sleep by the time I finish watching the first half of The Daily Show. And you know what? Once you get used to watching Jon Stewart every night, it’s really weird to watch the old-fashioned host-striding-out-and-doing-jokes-before-an-audience thing. Even if the host is Conan O’Brien, and even if the jokes are funny.

Oh, and as for David Letterman? He’s not always easy to watch, and I don’t always get or like his humor, but I admire him deeply and I’m in awe of his talents. I guess it has something to do with this terrific profile of him from last September, when he was caught up in his sex scandal. An excerpt:

Craggy, bewildered, irascible Dave, with his gray crew cut, designer suits, and white socks — a nightly mind-blowing image in HDTV — has become a persona, a distinctive agglomeration of character traits, even more than his idol Johnny Carson, much more like Carson’s own idol, Jack Benny. His monologues are indifferent as one-liners and jokes, but the character who delivers them is one memorable American. He can reel off dozens of Obama jokes and McCain jokes and Paris Hilton jokes, but it is when Letterman begins to invert and mutter, when his personal neuroses and raw wounds are inflamed by the assaults of everyday life— and whose aren’t? — that is when he becomes something more than a good comedian and something like the scarred protagonist of his own comic novel — a bewildered, gutty mid-lifer at the crash intersection of American culture.

As for Conan O’Brien — he’ll be okay. He’s rolling in dough no matter what happens. Maybe he’ll go to Fox. Maybe NBC will cave in and put Jay somewhere else (doubtful).

The network has treated him like shit, but that’s showbiz.

For political junkies, a presidential Election Day is like Christmas. It’s like the Superbowl for sports fans; it’s like the Tony Awards for the gays.

This is it.

As we’ve gotten closer to today, I’ve measured the days like I usually do when I anticipate big events:

The election is in 23 days… what was I doing 23 days ago?

The first polls close in 47 hours… what was I doing 47 hours ago?

Ever since the last presidential debate, my emotions have gone from optimism, to fear and anxiety, back to optimism, and finally to giddiness. I kept waiting for something bad to happen. I kept waiting for the polls to tighten. As the day got closer, I kept thinking, What are they holding back? and, Is [event X] going to be the thing that turns people back toward McCain? This past weekend I could focus on almost nothing else but the election.

It’s been 12 years since we’ve had a presidential election that did not appear to be a tossup. The last time the presidential candidates actually spoke on Election Night was in 1996 — Clinton vs. Dole.

The next two election nights gave me agita. I’m not sure which was worse — 2000 or 2004. The first was nerve-wracking; the second was just depressing.

And now it’s 2008, and I feel hopeful about a presidential election for the first time in years.

And this got me unexpectedly choked up.

I don’t want to jinx it… but tonight should be one for the history books.

Hilarious:

As Mr. McCain enters this closing stretch, his aides — as well as some outside Republicans and even a few Democrats — argue that he still has a viable path to victory…

Mr. McCain’s advisers said the key to victory was reeling back those Republican states where Mr. Obama has them on the run: Florida, where Mr. McCain spent Thursday; Indiana; Missouri; North Carolina; Ohio; and Virginia.

Oh, gee, is that all?

If he can hang on to all those states as well as others that are reliably red, he would put into his column 260 of the 270 electoral votes necessary to win.

*would spit coffee, if I drank coffee*

They need to do all of that and it doesn’t even get them to 270?

Mr. McCain’s advisers said they would look for the additional electoral votes they need either by taking Pennsylvania from the Democrats, or putting together some combination of Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico.

It’s so sweet of the Times to try and provide balance.

Now that all the debates are behind us, and McCain hasn’t put a dent in Obama’s poll numbers, I’m cautiously optimistic. Not overly optimistic, but cautiously so.

I’ve realized there’s no need to be worried; more often than not, the status quo holds. Conventional wisdom is usually right.

On the other hand, I’m not giddy. There are still 19 days until the election, and that’s a long time in politics. Any number of things could happen: Osama bin Laden could issue another video message, or he could be captured; there could be a terrorist attack (not likely); the Republicans could get desperate with their push-polls and voter mailings; McCain could put out a really effective ad; Obama voters could get blocked at the polls on Election Day; voting machines could go haywire. In 2000 and 2004, we came tantalizingly close, only to be thwarted.

But Obama is currently doing better in the polls than Gore or Kerry were doing at this point in their races. It’s not even close right now; Obama is winning.

The last time I felt like this was in October 1992. All signs were pointing to a Bill Clinton victory, but I couldn’t let myself believe it would actually happen. A couple of weeks before the election, Newsweek put a picture of Bill Clinton on its cover with the words, “President Clinton?” As in, this could actually happen. It wasn’t until election night that I cheered.

So I remain cautiously optimistic. And I just want November 4 to get here. I want this to be over with. I won’t be able to take much more.

Who won the debate?

It’s a silly question and I hate it. It doesn’t make sense, because these things we have every four years are not formal debates. Now, I was never on the debate team or in a debating society, but from what I know, a formal debate covers a single topic. For example, “Resolved: Fredonia should enter into an alliance with the League of Planets.” Or, “Resolved: truth is more important than beauty.” One side argues for, the other side argues against. Afterwards, a panel of judges decides which side had the better argument, and that side is the winner.

These presidential debates aren’t like that. There’s no single topic — there are a bunch of different topics.

On the other hand, there really is a single topic, a meta-topic. “Resolved: Candidate X would be a better president of the United States than Candidate Y.”

But again, the question is academic. Kerry “won” his debates against Bush (“You forgot Poland!,” “Need some wood?”), but he lost the election. Debates can help, but they’re not decisive.

So the question is fluid and subjective, and “who won the debate?” doesn’t automatically determine who gets elected.

Also, the actual debate is only half of what happens. The other half is how the debate gets spun. Perceptions will gel after a day or two. I thought Gore wiped the floor with Bush after their first debate in 2000, but then this little meme spread around that Gore kept “sighing” and that he therefore lost. What utter bullshit. (God… to look back on 2000 and see that so much turned on so little.)

There’s some chatter now on Talking Points Memo and Andrew Sullivan that McCain never made eye contact with Obama tonight and that it strikes some people as odd. Part of me says, so the hell what? Eye contact doesn’t matter. But the other part of me thinks it would be nice payback for 2000.

Tomorrow night will be equally as important as tonight. Tomorrow night is when “Saturday Night Live” will do its debate parody. “Makin’ progress!” “It’s hard work!” “Lockbox.” “Strategery.” Those are what I remember most from SNL’s debate parodies in the last couple of elections. Darrell Hammond or Fred Armisen — whose Obama portrayal still makes me cringe in its utter inaccuracy — will speak some lines that will be watched and replayed all over TV and the web, and that’s what will take hold.

Who won the debate? (1) It’s the wrong question, and (2) we’ll know the answer on November 4.

I liked this from Electoral-vote.com:

Nobody really expects politicians to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but the willingness of the candidates to brazenly tell out-and-out lies has reached a new high this year. In the past, politicians would shade the truth a bit and if they were caught, would stop. No more. The Washington Post has a story on that today. One example: “McCain says rival Barack Obama would raise everyone’s taxes, even though the Democrat’s tax plan exempts families that earn less than $250,000.” But a poll taken Sept. 5-7 shows that 51% of the voters thought Obama would raise their taxes. Republican strategist John Feegery said: “these little facts don’t really matter.” What he means is that the campaign is trying to exploit the long-standing Republican theme that Democrats raise taxes and Obama’s promise to raise taxes only on the rich is an unimportant detail that can be safely ignored. In the past the press called candidates to order when they lied. Now the model is to give each side equal time, even if one is brazenly lying. For example, if Obama wanted to motivate younger voters, he could say: “McCain will bring back the draft and everyone under 21 will be sent to Iraq.” There is not a shred of evidence for this, of course, but the press would dutifully report it along with McCain’s outraged denial. But the seed would be planted. Three days later there would be a poll showing that 35% of the voters think McCain will bring back the draft. That’s how the game is played these days. It ain’t beanbag.

What Obama should actually do is start saying to seniors, “McCain will take away your Social Security.” Then let the press fight it out with McCain.

Human beings like to analogize.

So I’ve realized that Sarah Palin is also a female Mike Huckabee. A folksy, culturally right-wing governor who will fire up the base.

And one of my friends on Facebook said that Sarah Palin is to Hillary Clinton as Clarence Thomas is to Thurgood Marshall.

This is in addition to her being Harriet Miers and Dan Quayle.

I alternately think she’s a joke and fear her. Or, rather, I fear what she might do for McCain. The base will probably love her (Dobson likes her), and she might increase evangelical turnout, and that really scares me.

But I can’t imagine the PUMA people supporting her. I’d think/hope they would be insulted that McCain thinks he can win them over just by picking a candidate with ovaries — as insulted as they’d have been if Obama had picked Kathleen Sibelius.

Andrew Sullivan continues to dig up good stuff. Hopefully news organizations will pick up all these mini-scandals in a few days after the excitement wears off, and they’ll suck up oxygen, and they’ll show that Palin wasn’t vetted properly and that McCain is a reckless risk-taker. We’ve already had one of those for the last eight years and we don’t need another.

Fivethirtyeight.com:

… picturing a young, attractive, kooky, female governor from Alaska who has an accent straight out of Fargo in the White House is going to be a much bigger leap for many voters than picturing Barack Obama there.

At first I was disappointed he didn’t pick Romney. Romney would have been so much fun to run against. And it’s possible Palin could fire up the base. Instead of aborting a Down-Syndrome baby, she Chose Life. She’s pro-gun, pro-creationism.

But this still seems like a total joke. Harriet Miers redux — she won’t make any major mistakes, but something just doesn’t seem right. This is an example of that vaunted “judgment” McCain keeps attributing to himself?

So the presidential nominee of one major party is from Hawaii, and the vice presidential nominee of the other major party is from Alaska. Noncontinental U.S. states represent!

She comes out of nowhere, she’s younger than Obama, and she’s been a state governor for less than two years. And she’d be a heartbeat away from a 72-year-old man’s presidency.

This pretty much undermines one of McCain’s key arguments against Obama.

She seems vastly underqualified to be president.

Is she going to be the Harriet Miers of the VP process?