the kicker

Election Night On Ice

Where to tune in election night? So many choices… And so, MSNBC (the channel that back in February gave us “Monster Super Tuesday” complete with exploding...
November 3, 2008

Where to tune in election night? So many choices…

And so, MSNBC (the channel that back in February gave us “Monster Super Tuesday” complete with exploding logos and “Vote-zilla”) presents: Election Returns On Ice! Which involves a map of the U.S.A. carved into the ice at Rockefeller Center’s skating rink, the states of which will turn red or blue as returns come in, and which MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer and Chuck Todd promoted earlier as follows:

TODD: This week we turned the world famous Rockefeller Plaza into Election Plaza. I have a map behind me and everything. It’s, you know, right there on the ice. I’d even skate on it although I grew up in Miami, so I don’t do ice skating. But you don’t want to miss this tomorrow night. My colleague, Contessa Brewer joins me out on Election Plaza this morning…

BREWER: ….We are on the edge of Rockefeller Plaza. The ice rink down below us. As can you see, there are a lot of people getting the chance to skate over MSNBC’s election map. You just referenced that. This is going to be exciting on election night to watch the returns coming in…

TODD: …You will get to watch [Brewer]. They will bring over reds and blues when the states get called, and my favorite story is, apparently, there are people that will watch the election and when their state is called, go on to the state and have a marriage proposal. So its gonna be wild out here. If you are in the New York area, you probably want to come down and watch this. It’s a lot of fun.

So tomorrow night, as MSNBC calls a state for one candidate or the other, Todd is telling us that someone might rush onto the ice and propose to their loved one while standing on their home state on MSNBC’s ice map in Rockefeller Plaza?

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What’ve you got, Fox News and CNN?

Well, Fox will have “The Launch Pad” (“where [Fox News anchor] Megyn Kelly will be stationed,” and “be able to access exit polls, video and state results and provide them on a 10-foot or so high screen”) and “The Cube” (a “huge digital box of screens that will show video and data”) and, will have its “Magic Wall” and is promising interviews with the holographic surrogates of campaign surrogates (campaign advisers will be “projected as a three-dimensional hologram, making it appear as if [they are] in the Manhattan studio with [Wolf] Blitzer” because, says CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman, ”virtual elements in a real set look so much better than a real person in a virtual set.”)

So bells and whistles, yes, but no engagement rings (on ice).

Which still leaves, should any one wish to try to claim it, providing-well-reported-and-timely-information-as-gimmick….

Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.