TVSquad

Okay, it's been about 80 minutes since ABC News began their coverage of the elections, and I have just one thing to say: Diane Sawyer is hot! And, I guess George Stephanopoulos is cute, as well. Other than that, there isn't much else to report about the early coverage of the 2008 Presidential election. Which, I have heard, is historic. I know this because I heard it mentioned 550 times since coverage began.

So far, I give high marks to the team of Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer, and George. I can't put my finger on it, but they seem to be the classiest and most qualified team of the Big Three networks. It's probably Charlie, who is the veteran of all of the current national news anchors. Plus, you know, Diane is hot. Together, they were able to keep the coverage moving during the first hour as the exit poll results were few and far between.

Speaking about those election results ... Thumbs up to ABC for not giving their estimates of winners in those states that are too close to call. Sure, it really didn't do much to pump up the election coverage energy, but it prevented me from throwing my remote at my HDTV screen and screaming that they were ruining the election. By the way, why does ABC's HDTV channel have the lowest volume on any channel? My volume control doesn't go high enough to get the proper sound. So, it's standard analog coverage for me, thank you very much.

A few initial thoughts about ABC's set. Well, it's big, that's for sure. Charlie, Diane and George are sitting in separate boroughs of New York City from what I can see. Charlie said the set reminded him of a starship bridge, which makes sense. Charlie is like Captain Picard, George is the plucky Commander Riker, and Diane is...well...did I mention she was hot?

Like many of the networks, the ABC set has its flat screens, its touch screen map, and its large number of junior, senior, and graduate political analysts. You know that because they have laptops that read 'political analyst' on them. So far, Charlie and the gang have not gone to many of these analysts yet, nor the correspondents out in the field. Mostly, it's been Charlie and George hashing out the results and Diane rattling off exit poll results.

The only issue I have is with the results banner across the bottom of the screen. It's a bit disconcerting. For the states that are still reporting results we are only seeing the raw numbers and no any information about the percentage of precincts being recorded. So, when you see one candidate at 63% and the other at 37% you sit and wonder how the hell they couldn't declare a winner of a particular state.

All right, back to watching one of Obama's spokespeople. See you in about 90 minutes.