Comedy Central, the channel starring vulgar 3rd graders and crank calling puppets, isn’t the first name in news, but the Daily Show is the standard to measure the rest by.  Jon Stewart took over for Craig Kilborn in 1999, just in time for the 2000 election.  For the next eight years, the Daily Show provided the sharpest political and media commentary this side of Carlos Mencia.  Uber geek Jon Stewart became an icon for teens and college students, inspiring a generation to geek out over politics.

Last night’s Daily Show reveal the news media’s true goal this election cycle - to make it never end. Asif Mandvi had his fingers crossed as Hillary Clinton, on the night Obama won enough delegates to claim the nomination, refused to concede defeat. If she ends her campaign, how will three 24-hour news channels fill up their time?

This entire primary season has been an effort in futility for anyone seeking information. Beyond the wasted time on out of context quotes, inflammatory relationships, and flag pins, the media punditry has desperately tried to frame this election as a horse race where if you turn away for a second, you’ll miss the crucial turning point. The result has been a ratings boon for the cable networks, with CNN seeing 90 percent increases over last year’s first quarter. MSBNC grew 68 percent. Fox News hasn’t benefited as much, with a 14 percent increase. The Democratic candidates had shut out the station from interviews until Hillary Clinton went on Bill O’Reilly’s show, giving his show a 30 percent boost in total viewers.

The 24-hour news networks relied on the image of a close race to build its ratings and are continuing the mirage heading into the general election. I don’t mean to say Hillary Clinton and John McCain had/have no chance of winning, but the odds were/are so against them. The media knows a close race is better television than a sure thing and that is causing them to be unobjective in their reporting, often overblowing non-issues in the hopes that flag pins and Reverend Wright would keep the race going.

The general election looks be a Democratic landslide even as polls show Obama and McCain are in a statistical dead heat. These polls do not account for a unified Democratic party, one this split between rabid Clinton and Obama supporters who, very likely, have no intention of voting for anti-abortion, pro-war Republican McCain even though they say so now in polls. McCain has already collected support his primary challengers just as Obama will once Clinton accepts her 2nd place finish. The result will be an unprecedented coalition of the two biggest voter and fundraising networks in history, a network McCain can’t catch up to even if he didn’t have a fundraising issue.

The other point ignored by polls is that the electoral college counts, popular vote doesn’t. I think the popular vote will end up close between Obama and McCain. The electoral college will be a Democratic landslide benefited by anti-war and anti-Republican sentiments, McCain’s lackluster appeal to hard conservatives, and Obama’s massive appeal to the youth and African-Americans. Democratic wins of special elections in Illinois (Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the house’s seat), Louisiana, and Mississippi (Trent Lott’s seat former seat), by sizeable margins spell doom for Republicans. McCain might toy with winning states like New Jersey, Michigan, and New York, but he has to hold prior swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Iowa while playing defensive in Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, and in optimistic circles, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, Montana, and Texas. Short of an Obama imposition, it’s impossible to see an electoral scenario where McCain can win.

But the news media doesn’t want to entertain electoral math. It’s more fun to pretend Obama has a white problem (how many African American’s live in Montana, Iowa, and Wisconsin?) or highlight how much independents love McCain. It keeps the race looking closer than it really is.

I don’t want CNN to call the race for Obama or ignore McCain as an also-ran. Their responsibility should be to inform us of the facts of the campaign - who did what when and why. What if questions or conjecture have no place in objective journalism. Blogs, on the other hand, can go conjecture crazy. Without some source for objective, investigative reporting on both candidates, this election is going to once again defined by talking points, 527-organization, and out-of-context crap that doesn’t matter. Change and leaders we can believe in requires a media to change and lead.

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Last night, the kings of pre-late night returned after a ten week break due to the writers strike.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert improvised their respective shows without the aid of a writing staff, leading to a slower pace of jokes and longer interviews.  Colbert, with his over-the-top pundit bravado, managed to fill time with his ego. Stewart found himself sidekick-less.  Still funny, but it seems even he knew the show wasn’t up to par.  And he didn’t mind jabbing at the WGA on air for not making special arrangements with his show, as well as both the writers and producers silly stances on the internet.

I worry about how long Stewart and Colbert can maintain even the current standard.  Both shows struggled but were enjoyable and smarter than most junk on TV.  But coming up with that much material four days a week is really hard.  I just have to make two or three blog posts a day and I’m exhausted.  These guys actually have to be funny.

The sting has been missing the best political commentary during the exciting roller coaster of primary season.  Both hosts focused more on the strike itself rather than lampoon the sorely in need of lampooning candidates (though Colbert reminded us of his challenge to Obama for grit-eating-off). 

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Only yesterday Comedy Central pulled all YouTube content of their shows. Now ads appear promoting the Daily Show’s posting of full episodes on the Comedy Central site. In fact, the ad says you no long have to collect pieces of each episode at “some crappy blog.” While I have little qualm with the crappy blog comment (I have work I probably should be doing), I find Comedy Central’s possessiveness of the Daily Show predictable yet misguided. While it is helpful to have one source with the full episode, this limits the viral quality of specific segments of the show. YouTube’s video software is more reliable and allows itself to be easily shared and posted on other websites, spreading the viral-ness. Comedy Central, however, wants people on their site with their content with their ads. This lessens my ability to share a particularly enjoyable Mark Foley segment, skipping the bland opening monologue. The viral sharing allows for a meritocracy of content (not necessarily high art, but footage that most people enjoy…most particularly groin hits). Blogs and YouTube are an expression of individualism. Media companies trying to govern them will only feel a backlash.

Check out Henry Jenkins’ book, the Convergence Culture, where he looks at fan involvement in Star Wars and Harry Potter. He also offers several solutions, many required on the media conglomerate’s side, to allow blogs and fans space to share and add content.