Election night's best TV moments

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Not since Kevin '07 have I awoke on an Election day with such a sense of foreboding. 

I crawled out of bed at 5:45am yesterday, ready to face the possibility that the country I'd moved to and was, more or less, stuck in for the next five years, might elect a dropkick and his sinister offsider to the White House. 

Yes, as the phrase goes, I don't even go here, but not having a say in the vote - especially having become used to Australia's blissful mandatory voting system - somehow made the potential horrors of Election 2012 all the more real. 

So, when Wolf Blitzer entered The Situation Room on CNN, it was time to hunker down and prepare for the worst. 

I first got an inkling of the lulz that American election coverage would entail when CNN announced proudly and without the slightest hint of satire that they'd be using the Empire State Building's spire as a barometer once the votes started being tallied; red for Romney, blue for Obama. 

It was so silly that I had to check on Instagram (~modern life~) to see if it was real and, indeed, it was. Here's a shot from New York Daily News:

So far, so Sleepless In Seattle. 

I sat with CNN for a time, and then had to jump on a train to a friend's house where we'd ring in the second term/commit mass suicide, depending on the result. 

From there, we switched to a mix of ABC and Fox, and what an intoxicating blend it was. 

Intoxicated might be more appropriate in ABC's case, given Diane Sawyer's "interesting" approach to the coverage: 

Slow down on those "lucky milkshakes", Diane!

Later - and not much later, as it turned out, given we were prepared to have to wait until the early hours of the morning to hear a result - as it began to be clear that Obama was going to pwn Romney, the place to be was Fox, where sadness abounded. 

Republican Rumplestiltskin-esque figure and Fox guest, Karl Rove, wouldn't have a bar of it: 

And Bill O'Reilly was RLY sad: 

Plus look at these poor dears: 

It was a different story altogether over at ABC, where Sharyn Alfonsi was sent to Pewaukee, WI to check in on a very sombre Republican crowd. Clearly THRILLED to be there, Sharyn - installed at the back of the room - offered a series of troll faces, jokes, riotous laughter, and gags at the expense of the mourning GOP crew, only to have a bunch of Romney-ites turn around and shush her. 

Her response - which, sadly, doesn't seem to be online in video form - was to LOL even harder: 

SHARYN, I LOVE YOU!

ABC also relished the salty, salty tears of disappointed Romney followers, training a camera on one particular young woman who looked skyward, tears squirting, as if to say "WHY HAS OUR GOD FORSAKEN US?"

Fortunately for our enjoyment, the BBC caught the same tears on camera: 

On the other hand, over at Obama HQ, a (no doubt carefully selected) diverse crowd partied on stage awaiting their time to play the President's living, breathing backdrop. Highlights included this cool dude: 

So, in the end, what I had settled in to watch, expecting a slow-burning horror movie, turned out to be the comedy event of the year. 

You can't ask for more than that, really.