BNN Blogging The Visual Side Of The Election Returns

5:06 PST: CNN just projects 10 states at once. Looks like big sheet of postage stamps on digital screen. “I’ll take 8 blue Obamas please.”

5:11 PST: CNN showing crowd in Grant Park watching/cheering for themselves on CNN monitors. Seems all too incestuous.

5:19 PST: Boys choir onstage at Phoenix Biltmore. Shoot me now.

5:31 PST: Still can’t figure out that weird electronic chart that Bill Schneider and Soledad O’Brian are playing with.

5:48 Maybe MSNBC is the second biggest winner of the night. Notice Chuck Todd playing it down the middle with that purple tie.

6:08 Biggest drama of the night so far (left – click to enlarge). CNN beams reporter into the studio via hologram.

6:20 Briefly punctuating a suddenly uncertain picture (talking heads having thinking red thoughts re: VA and FLA), we see Jean Shaheen in periwinkle against a periwinkle background.

6:35 Like that NM effect. First blue box below national mid-line.

6:41 Vibe shifting. A little less obsession on the map, more shots of masses streaming toward Grant Park. Questions now about what Obama had for dinner.

7:06 Pics to get very interesting now. Seeing shots from Harlem, Grant Park, Rock Center, Time Square. In next few hours, we’ll see huge throngs across U.S. sending the love. Most important audience: the rest of the (Bush-free) world.

7:32 Bennett, Borger, Gergen self-consciously stumbling and fumbling trying to talk about race and the Republican party. So embarrassing I can’t watch.

7:37 MSNBC just showed a shot of Obama celebration in Birmingham. Hoping to get on-the-scene images from (Our Man In Alabama) Mario Tama tomorrow.

7:40 Oh, what a disappointment. Just saw people applying color to the state map on the ice rink at Rock Center. With all the wiz-bang special effects this year, they couldn’t do it digitally?

7:44 Chi Trib doing a running update on their Grant Park slide show. Shot above by Phil Velasquez.

7:57 Ahh, what a relief. Flipped over to C-SPAN2, a non-commercial live feed from Grant Park. CNN, the supposedly international network just flashed brief video from Sydney, Kenya, Johannesburg. Enough with the hegemony. The world won!

8:04 WE’LL, OBAMA CAN SAY WHATEVER HE WANTS NOW, AND NOBODY CAN MESS WITH HIM!

The Campaign from Obama’s Point of View. Callie Shell: Beaver Creek, Michigan. Passing through, August 31, 2008.

8:29 PST – Well, nothing more inspiring than seeing a huge crowd celebrating at the gates of the White House. Finally, taking it back.