As the filmmakers behind "Zero Dark Thirty" launch into an Oscar-season publicity blitz, they are stressing how nonpolitical their pic about the hunt for Osama bin Laden is. President Obama, for instance, appears only in a brief news clip.

The reason is that even before the first frame of film was shot, they'd stepped in to a partisan thicket: Republicans asserted that the Obama administration bent over backwards to help director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal -- and may have provided classified material -- to trumpet one of the White House's signature successes.

Boal, in an interview this week with ABC News' Martha Raddatz, said, "I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified material, and to my knowledge, I never received any."

The conservative watchdog org Judicial Watch, having filed a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained a trove of emails and other documents related to the interaction that the filmmakers had with the Department of Defense and the CIA. Their release didn't exactly shake the corridors of power, but Judicial Watch is pressing forward with its case and continues to seek the partial names of four CIA operatives the government arranged for the filmmakers to interview as they researched the script, as well as the full name and rank of a Navy SEAL they say the Department of Defense provided to Boal.

"As the government has stated, it routinely provides information to filmmakers who request it for the purpose of ensuring artists who wish to portray government functions and historical events accurately may do so," Judicial Watch said in a Nov. 12 brief with the U.S. District Court in D.C. "While that may normally be a perfectly harmless endeavor, when the government goes from simple information sharing to selectively providing non-public information to some filmmakers while refusing to release it generally, this once-harmless activity crosses a line of appearance."

The org claims that by releasing the partial or full names to the filmmakers, the government is waiving an exemption from FOIA.

Attorneys for the Defense Department and the CIA, however, say that the CIA operatives, all of whom played a role in planning the raid, only provided their full first names, not last names or pseudonyms, during their interviews. In a brief filed in September, the DoD and the CIA said that they "disclosed the names to the filmmakers, not the general public, and only for the limited purpose of facilitating the filmmakers' meeting with the individuals. … The CIA and DoD did not authorize the filmmakers to make names they shared with them public, to publicly associate the individuals with the CIA or DoD, or to expose those individuals' identity in any publicly released film, and there was no reason for the CIA or DoD to have believed that any of this would have happened."

Attorneys for the agencies contend that the government has "reasonably withheld" the names from disclosure "pursuant to well-established FOIA exemptions." They point to a court decision last year in which the FBI allowed civil rights groups to view chapters of an operations guide, and even take notes, during a two-hour meeting at FBI headquarters. But the U.S. District Court ruled that the FBI did not fully waive its right to withhold chapters from release.

Mark Caramanica, freedom of information director at the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, said that the "Zero Dark Thirty" case suggests that the agencies are being "hypocritically selective," particularly with a project that puts the administration in a good light, and wonders just how much information would have been released had they not been compelled to do so.

"If the names are truly a national security secret, they shouldn't be disclosing them to anybody," Caramanica said. "They shouldn't be picking and choosing based on who has rights and who doesn't."

The Supreme Court is meeting in private on Friday to decide which same-sex marriage cases to accept for review, and it is expected to announce its decisions by Monday.

The court is not deciding on the merits of the cases, just whether to take them. Pending are a handful fo challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, and also the challenge to California's Proposition 8. It's the latter case that has the most involvement of industry activists, who financed an effort to overturn the state's ban on same sex marriage, winning victories in district and appellate courts.

What will have the most immediate impact is if the Supreme Court decides not to take the Prop 8 case. That would mean that the lower court rulings declaring the initiative unconstitutional stand, and presumably that same-sex marriages in the Golden State can proceed.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights is planning a press conference call 30 minutes after any action, with lead counsel Ted Olson and David Boies and HRC president Chad Griffin. They also are planning a press conference if there is a decision on Monday. LGBT POV's Karen Ocamb reports that if cert is denied to the Prop 8 case, and the marriages set to resume, plans are for a rally at Grant Park Performance Lawn in downtown Los Angeles, with Rob Reiner as the MC. West Hollywood and Long Beach also are planning celebrations that evening. Los Angeles and San Francisco are making preparations, and have asked the Ninth Circuit for advanced notice if the court is about to issue a mandate lifting a ban on gay nuptials.

The wisdom seems to be that there is a strong likelihood of the court taking one or some of the DOMA cases but not the Prop 8 case.

Richard Socarides, New York lawyer and Democratic strategist, said that while it is "very hard to predict" what the high court will do, there is a sense that the Supreme Court "doesn't like to decide what it doesn't have to decide."

While there's reasoning that the court could still see the issue better left to the states, the Ninth Circuit decided Prop 8 on narrower grounds than the district court. The appellate judges' rationale was that Prop 8 was unconstitutional because it denied rights previously granted, citing a decision that the court made in 1996 when it struck down a Colorado anti-LGBT rights law. That is far different than declaring that the constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, and the narrower ruling could make it easier for justices to take a pass.

But with just four votes needed for the court to accept a case, the court is, as Socarides says, "very hard to predict." Remember last summer's healthcare ruling and who ultimately turned out to be the swing vote.

 

 

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is criticizing proposals to relax the FCC’s media ownership rules, calling on chairman Julius Genachowski to have a public vote on the changes at the next commission meeting.

In her letter, dated Nov. 29, she calls the FCC’s draft order “disappointing.” She wrote, “FCC rules are supposed to serve the public interest. However, this proposed draft order appears to only serve the interest of large media companies that have made bad business decisions. There is no reason to do this. While it may be good for Wall Street, it is not good for Main Street.”

Cantwell’s letter was released by Free Press, which on Tuesday warned that it would take legal action if the FCC pursues plans to change the rules without additional study and public comment.

The 180-page proposal has not been publicly released, but an FCC spokesman has said that the goal would be to “streamline and modernize” the rules, including “eliminating outdated prohibitions on newspaper-radio and TV-radio cross ownership.”

There have been reports that the FCC would take the media ownership regulations up at its December meeting, but the agenda has not been released and a spokesman for Genachowski has not said if it would appear among the items. The FCC has an open meeting scheduled for Friday, but the item is not on the agenda.

Some of Cantwell’s most critical comments were on procedure. She said that FCC’s “most recent quadrennial review of media ownership rules has not been conducted in an open and transparent way,” contending that a draft order was being circulated was being keyed up “for a vote in private rather than have the item voted on at an FCC open meeting.”

Cantwell sits on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

A spokesman for Genachowski had no immediate comment.

Pandora pressed its case for lower rates for music licensing to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to support a bill that would put it in parity with cable and satellite radio but at the same time reduce the amount it has to pay to artists.

But the legislation, backed by Pandora, Clear Channel and the Consumer Electronics Assn., may have hit a roadblock, as lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee suggested that any action also address the issue of paying artists when their music is played on broadcast stations. The fight over a broadcast “performance right,” as it is called, has dragged on for decades, and even as the music industry has won bipartisan support, it has run into fierce resistance from broadcasters.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), long a champion of such a broadcast performance royalty, said that the Pandora-backed legislation “may be the catalyst to formulating an AM/FM performance right.”

“I absolutely think we are making it worse in attempting to solve the problem piecemeal,” Conyers said at the hearing, held by the House Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property, competition and the Internet.

Such a broadcast royalty is not even part of the Internet Radio Fairness Act, which supporters say is aimed at ending an inequity in music royalty rates. Cable and satellite radio pay a statutory fee that is much less than the royalty paid by Internet radio outlets. Broadcasters do not pay artists when their songs are played, arguing that such reach is valuable promotion.

A coalition of artists is lobbying fiercely against the Internet Radio Fairness Act, and they were led at Wednesday’s hearing by Jimmy Jam, who said that the legislation would affect not just current artists but new acts. “It affects everyone across the board,” he said. Opponents say artists would see an 85% reduction in their royalty from Internet radio.

Jam, too, took the opportunity to argue for a broadcast royalty for artists.

“We need an industry-wide solution to the problem, and really only Congress can make that happen,” he said.

But Joseph J. Kennedy, chairman and CEO of Pandora, told the subcommittee that the currenty rate-setting standard was unfair, and were it not for previous congressional intervention, Internet radio would not exist. He said that Pandora will account for only 7% of U.S. radio listening in 2012, yet will pay SoundExchange almost $250 million in royalties, which is more than half of Pandora’s revenue. Satellite will pay 7.5% of their revenue, and cable will pay 15%.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer will be at the White House on Wednesday for an afternoon meeting with other corporate chieftans to discuss the economy and the deficit.

They'll be joined by others, including Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, AT&T's Randall Stephenson and Macy's Terry Lundgren, to participate in the meeting with President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden.

The White House says that the meeting will be to "discuss the actions we need to take to keep our economy growing and find a balanced approach to reduce our deficit." The Beltway term for that is the "fiscal cliff," a Jan. 1 deadline before tax cuts expire and massive reductions are made to the defense budget.

 

The Facebook rumor that had many, many users posting lengthy disclaimers on their profiles triggered a post from MPAA chairman Chris Dodd, who writes that it points to the need for greater protection of copyright online.

Dodd writes at Huffington Post, "A Facebook post making the rounds this week falsely raises concerns about whether the copyright protection policy for the social media site's users is being altered and describes how people can stop it.

"While the substance of the post - now being dubbed a hoax --- is almost comically inaccurate, the episode raises a critical point: At a time when personal and artistic content is just a click away, copyright protection is more important than ever."

Users had been posting the legalistic notice over the weekend on the notion that it would prevent Facebook from owning or using their content. The rumor was that Facebook had changed its terms of service, triggering the need for users to post such a notice. But Facebook refuted the rumor, issuing a statement that "anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms." Nevertheless, as has been pointed out, it can change the terms of service and users have to abide by them. Otherwise, they can simply exit Facebook.

But Dodd cast the hoax as indicative of the vexing problems that content creators face when their material is online --- piracy leaves them with little control over their copyright.

Dodd wrote, "The Facebook incident demonstrates that the average Internet user recognizes this fact, especially when they feel their personal content - photos, videos, ideas, etc. - is in jeopardy. But it also provides average Internet users with some insight into the point of view of the creators of movies, music or other artistic endeavors whose work has been subject to online theft."

Dodd's full post is here.

After his on-air attack on Fox News of the network's coverage of the Benghazi attacks, journalist and author Tom Ricks denies the news outlet's contention that he apologized after the interview.

In an email statement to Talking Points Memo and an interview with Politico, Ricks challenges Fox executive Michael Clemente's contention that he apologized to the network after the interview ended. Ricks told Politico they are "making it up" and TPM that Clemente's account was "misleading." Adding further fuel to the fire, Ricks said that he had a conversation with anchor Bret Baier after the interview that was "lengthy, and on point."

The interview on Monday was abruptly ended when Ricks criticized Fox for politicizing the Benghazi attacks "partly because it was operating as a wing of the Republican party."

Update: Clemente told TV Newser that Ricks' response was "utterly dishonest."

"I'm surprised by the General's utter dishonesty," Clemente says. "I'll refresh his memory – what he said following the segment was, "Sorry… I'm tired from a non-stop book tour.' Perhaps now he can finally get some rest."

The interview is below:

 

Writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow, the duo behind the upcoming "Zero Dark Thirty," deny that they received any classified information to make the movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The movie, set for limited release next month but screened for the press in recent days, has stirred controversy over the access obtained by the filmmakers. Last year, after New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted the cooperation that the Obama administration was giving to the filmmakers, Republicans on Capitol Hill cried foul, and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) asked the Defense Department and the CIA whether classified material had been released. The implication was that the administration was anxious to cooperate on a project that detailed one of its success stories.

But in an interview with ABC's "Nightline," set to air tonight, Boal said, "I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified material. To my knowledge I never received any."

ABC's Martha Raddatz reports that President Obama makes only a "fleeting" appearance in the movie.

Nevertheless, the filmmakers did receive cooperation from military and intelligence officials.

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has been seeking documents in the case to discern the Obama administration's involvement in the making of the movie. In May, they posted emails and other documents they received after filing a freedom of information request. 

The emails and documents showed that although leaders of the Special Operations Command could not talk to them, an undersecretary of defense said they could make available an unidentified Navy SEAL who was involved in the planning. It also noted other types of cooperation, including tours of government facilities.

Judicial Watch continues to seek information from the Department of Defense and the CIA, including five names it claims that the government shared with the filmmakers but refuses to disclose. "When the government shares confidential information selectively with individual industry participants, it should not enjoy the privilege of keeping that information secret from others once disclosed," Judicial Watch said in a Nov. 12 brief.

"Specifically, the names in question are the true first names only of four CIA operatives who were interviewed by the filmmakers )the last names were apparently never shared with the filmmakers and remain unknown to Judicial Watch), and the full name and rank disclosed to Mark Boal by Undersecretary of Defense Michael Vickers," Judicial Watch said in its brief. "These five partial or full true names are the only information Judicial Watch seeks, as it appears that all other recorded information the government shared with the filmmakers has already been released to Judicial Watch."

In its brief, the government says that the names do not have to be disclosed and are exempt from FOIA, arguing that their cooperation with the filmmakers does not waive their ability to protect such information. Attorneys noted that the CIA instructed officers whose names are at issue to share only their true first names when meeting the filmmakers. Only one of the names was disclosed by the Department of Defense.

In a brief filed in September, attorneys for the Defense Department and the CIA say that they "disclosed the names to the filmmakers, not the general public, and only for the limited purpose of facilitating the filmmakers' meeting with the individuals. ...The CIA and DoD did not authorize the filmmakers to make names they shared with them public, to publicly associate the individuals with the CIA or DoD, or to expose those individuals' identity in any publicly released film, and there was no reason for the CIA or DoD to have believed that any of this would have happened."

They argued that the names were "properly classified" and that the individuals have a need to protect their privacy.

"All of the names at issue in this case are of individual CIA or DoD personnel who played a role in the planning for the Osama bin Laden raid, and soem are undercover," the government attorneys wrote. "By virtue of their involvement in this highly sensitive mission, these individuals have a strong privacy interest in their names and identities. which would be threatened if their names (even the first names of undercover officers) were revealed. On the other side of the balance, there is no public interest in the public disclosure of these names."

So the latest wrinkle is not over classified "material," but classified "names."

U.S. customs officials on Monday said that authorities had seized 132 domain names selling counterfeit merchandise, ranging from DVDs to NFL jerseys to auto airbags, as part of a crackdown on Internet piracy tied to Cyber Monday.

John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told reporters that a concern is that counterfeiters are becoming "increasingly sophisticated," not only with the look of their websites but in the quality of the goods themselves.

"With an increase in online shopping comes an increase in online predators," Morton said.

Among the domain names seized was a site selling DVDs of "100 Years of Disney," even though the studio, as Morton noted, was founded 89 years ago.

"You name it, it is being counterfeited at this point," Morton said. "It is a huge, huge problem."

This marks the third year that ICE has timed domain name seizures to Cyber Monday, with coordination from the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center set up at the Department of Homeland Security. This year, ICE officials teamed with authorities in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Romania and the European Police Office to seize the sites.

In the U.S., the crackdown, part of an ongoing effort called Operation in Our Sites, seized 101 websites and resulted in one arrest, ICE officials said. An additional 31 domain names were seized in Europe, including addresses under .eu and .be. The focus was on trademarked goods, as opposed to sites trafficking in streaming movies and file sharing, Morton said.

Visitors to the sites now will see a message notifying them of the seizure, as well as a warning about willful copyright infringement.

ICE officials also went after PayPal accounts used by the sites, with proceeds in excess of $175,000 being targeted. After sites were identified in undercover purchases, Justice Department officials obtained seizure orders from magistrate judges, according to ICE.

Operation In Our Sites has seized 1,630 domain names since the effort was launched in June 2010.

Of the domain names seized before the latest Cyber Monday push, 684 have been forfeited to the U.S. government. Those who have an interest in seized sites can challenge the notice of seizure in court, and can petition for additional time to contest a forfeiture.

The complete list of sites seized is after the jump:

Morgan Freeman narrates a new ad from the Human Rights Campaign, set to run in markets across the country, that characterizes recent victories for same-sex marriage as a "mandate for full equality."

The 30-second spot, unveiled on Sunday, is going up in advance of a Supreme Court conference on Friday to consider whether to take a series of cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act as well as California's Proposition 8. It's expected that the high court will announce whether it will grant or deny cert in the cases on the following Monday, or Dec. 3. The court will be weighing five challenges to DOMA, the Prop 8 case, and a challenge to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's decision to stop offering domestic partner benefits to state employees.

The reasoning for airing a spot like this now it to take advantage of the attention that will be on the issue, particularly in the next week. In addition to what is going on in the Supreme Court, five state legislatures --- Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota and Rhode Island --- will be considering marriage equality legislation when lawmakers return in January.

The transcript and video of the ad, titled "Dawn of a New day for Marriage Equality," is below. It will start airing on Sunday and run for a week. It was filed and edited by Chi/Donahoe + Cole/Duffey in Portland, Maine.

America stands at the dawn of a new day.
Freedom, justice and human dignity have always guided our journey toward a more perfect union.
Now across our country, we are standing together for the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry the person they love.
And with historic victories for marriage, we’ve delivered a mandate for full equality.
The wind is at our back. But our journey has just begun.
Join us.

Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner sheds light on the victory of marriage equality supporters at the ballot box in all four states. A big change from all of the campaigns of the past: The ads.

Geidner writes, "Among the key changes were a shift away from talk of 'rights' to a focus on committed relationships; a decision to address 'values' directly as being learned at home; and an attempt to give voters 'permission' to change their minds, according to elements of the research shared with BuzzFeed.

"The research was 'instrumental in helping us figure out our path,' said Zach Silk, who served as the campaign manager to approve Washington's Referendum 74.

"The research was sponsored by Third Way — a centrist Democratic think tank — that conducted an extended round of surveys beginning in September 2010 'aimed at answering a single question: How do we most effectively persuade people in the middle to support relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples, including marriage?'"

As Geidner points out, the messaging was not only better and more sophisticated, but it was also quicker in response. So when opponents unveiled a new variation on ad spots sounding the alarm about kids being taught about same-sex relationships in schools, supporters were at the ready. Past campaigns --- 32 of them --- have often ended with last-minute voters deciding against marriage equality, following a blitz of ads from opponents. Not so this time. It also helped that supporters had more money to spend than groups like the National Organization for Marriage and even the Catholic Church.

A sample of one of the ads that capitalized on the research:

Here's an answer to what Mitt Romney is doing next.

A number of bloggers are watching the latest returns from the vote count --- yes, they are still counting ballots in a number of states --- to see if Mitt Romney ends up with 47 percent of the vote.

Given that Romney's "47 percent" video was a highlight of the campaign, a number of liberal bloggers see it as a fitting end to the story. Markos Moulitsas calls it a "delicious irony."

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post says that it is entirely possible that Romney will end up at that number.

He writes, "When all the votes are counted, could Mitt Romney really end up achieving perfect poetic justice by finishing with 47 percent of the national vote? Yup. Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says new votes in from Maryland put Romney at 47.56 percent. He predicts with certainty that with all of New York and California counted, Romney will end up below 47.5 percent of the vote."

The latest vote total is here.

Romney, meanwhile, was spotted in La Jolla pumping his own gas, according to a tabloid-esque photo taken by a photographer and posted on Reddit. Given that Al Gore grew a beard and Bob Dole did Viagra ads, who knows what is in store for Romney's future, although the way that GOP leaders have discarded him makes it unlikely that would mean elective politics.

Rocco Landesman, who has served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts throughout President Obama's first term, said he is resigning at the end of the calendar year.

Landesman said that it "has always been" his intention to serve one term.

"The time has come for me to become a cliché: I turned 65, am going to retire, and cannot wait to spend more time in Miami Beach," he said in a statement.

A Broadway producer perhaps best known for "The Producers" and "Angels in America," Landesman was a somewhat uncoventional choice to lead the NEA when Obama nominated him for the post in 2009. He was confirmed that August.

In his statement, Landesman said that they "have been able to accomplish more than I had ever thought possible: sparking a national movement around creative placemaking, forging significant relationships with other federal agencies, creating an unprecedented healing arts partnership with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and increasing both the scope and impact of our research office."

The NEA's appropriation was $146 million in 2012, down from $154.7 million a year earlier. During the presidential campaign, it became a target for elimination by Mitt Romney, who listed it among the federal agencies he would cut if elected.

Landesman also is co-owner of Jujamcyn Theatres, although he has been a silent partner during his tenure at the NEA.

NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa will serve as acting chairman until a successor is announced.

Here's my story from yesterday on the brouhaha over the weekend in D.C., in which the Republican Study Committee posted --- and then retracted --- a proposal for a series of copyright reforms. The big deal is that it was such a high profile org that seemed to endorse the idea, only a spokesman later said that it was posted by mistake.

Nevertheless, the policy brief, from Derek Khanna, drew plenty of attention in the Capitol, and drew praise today from New York Times columnist David Brooks as the type of thinking that the Republican party needs, and from a fresh voice (Khanna is only 24) that the GOP is seeking in its recovery from the 2012 elections. Indeed, many public interest groups on the so-called "Copy Left," who have long argued that strict copyright laws stifle innovation, yet are in place because of the power of Big Media, praised the policy brief and predicted that it would open up a new line of debate.

Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn wrote, "One needn’t be a detective to conclude that the retraction had less to do with the lack of an “adequate review” and balance and more with entertainment lobbyists coming down on the RSC like a ton of bricks. The defeat of SOPA and PIPA was bad enough – but a paper that would start serious discussion of bringing balance back to copyright law so that it once again accomplishes the Constitutional purpose of “promot[ing] the progress of science and the useful arts”?   That was too much for the industry to bear.

"The bad news for the movie studios and record companies is that the discussion about how to make copyright law make sense in a digital age has already started in Washington, and it will continue, with or without them."

The Cato Institute is hosting a debate on the topic on Dec. 6, and its speakers include Mitch Glazier of the Recording Industry Assn. of America.

What excites those who have called for reform is that the paper comes from a younger member of the conservative movement and that it has drawn attention a little bit beyond D.C. think tanks. Yet it is a live wire, as legislation to strengthen copyright has enjoyed robust bipartisan support.

Perhaps most controversial of all of Khanna's proposals is one to limit the copyright term to just 12 years, with additional renewals allowed only if the rights holder pays an increasing percentage of the revenue (it starts at 1% for 12 years, then goes to 3% for another six years, etc.) That is a far cry from the current term, which is the life of the author plus seventy years.

 

 

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation says that more than half of the portrayals of transgender characters in primetime have been "negative" over the past ten years.

GLAAD studied 102 episodes and non-reuccring storylines of scripted TV that contained transgender characters, and found that 54% contained "negative representations." An additional 35% were characterized between "problematic" and "good," while only 12% were considered "groundbreaking."

GLAAD singled out "CSI" for featuring a transgender serial killer who murdered his own mother; "The Cleveland Show" for featuring a man who vomits on screen for a long time after he discovered he had slept with a transgender character; and "Nip/Tuck," which, among other things,featured an entire season about a psychopathic trans woman who is depicted as a "Baby stealing sexual predator who sleeps with her own son."

The study also found that transgender characters were cast in the role of a "victim" at least 40% of the time, they were cast as killers or villains at least 21% of the time and that anti-transgender slurs, language and dialogue was present in at least 61% of the episodes and storylines.

The full study is here. Its release was timed to Transgender Awareness Week and the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

"When I thought about how big a message our shows might be sending, it didn't even begin to compare with the shows that might be preceding us: 'The Beverly Hillbillies' and 'Green Acres,' all those shows. There were no social problems. There was no race issue. There wasn't a bad economy. There was nothing worse than 'The roast is ruined, and the boss is coming to dinner.' Well, what a giant message that was. 'America, we have problems, but we have a bunch of happy families, largely white, so chuckle.'"

---Norman Lear, on how political "All in the Family" and other sitcoms of the 70s were compared to those in the previous decade. He and Alan Alda are being honored with International Emmy Awards. My story here.

Brian Lowry sees all of the post-election pontificating about demographics (Latinos, women, LGBT) as nothing new --- if you are in the TV business.

He writes, "The media, obviously, approach demographic trends with different priorities than do political campaigns -- eager to transform them into triumphs in terms of profit, not votes.

"The advertisers dictating the need to reach younger demographics, however, are forward-looking. Part of their rationale for emphasizing adults under 50 hinges on trying to hook potential customers early, gaining their loyalty for years to come.

"Political pundits, by contrast, frequently seem to be thinking no further ahead than the next election, only then -- once the outcome is known -- pivoting to turn their attention to the following campaign. In addition, the fact that older and white Americans generally vote in higher percentages than younger and minority groups has afforded them disproportionate clout at the ballot box, even as the influence they exercise through TV's ratings box has dwindled."

As he points out, in 1971, CBS programmer Fred Silverman cancelled all of the network's rural sitcoms, even ones in the top ten, in favor of more sophisticated shows that appealed to younger, more urban audiences. "All in the Family" led the so-called "rural purge." This urban vs. rural divide is not new to campaigns, it is just that it was so apparent in 2012, and this was a cycle in which one campaign mastered the method of reaching those voters, and turning them out, more than any other before.

Still perplexing, though, is how the Romneys could have said that "Modern Family" is their favorite TV show yet apparently didn't get how the show reflected changing demographics.

 

Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. is creating the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability, which will combine art, media and environmental sciences as part of its research and studies.

Redford appeared at the Los Angeles Press Club in Hollywood on Monday to announce the launch of the new conservancy, which is being funded via a gift from Susan and Nicholas Pritzker. The conservancy will be based at a former infirmary on 11.88 acres on the Pitzer campus, with the building repurposed and renovated with sustainable construction methods. The first academic programming will take place in fall 2014.

Redford serves as a special adviser to Pitzer President Laura Skandera Trombley, who said that part of the thrust will be to incorporate documentary filmmaking as a way for students to communicate about environmental issues. The institute will work to shape policies on water and energy use, health , air and food quality and transportation alternatives.

The actor and activist recalled growing up just east of Santa Monica in a landscape of communities surrounded by green spaces, only to transform into the sprawling, never-ending city that he compared to a “giant machine made up of buildings and concrete and pavement.”

“It no longer felt like home,” he said.

He said that with the conservancy, he was “really excited about the idea that, before it is too late for Los Angeles, there is something that can be set aside or set up that would not only honor what was, and what could still be, but also could honor the younger people coming in to the world.”

He called the most recent election “pretty scary,” but even though “we got through it the way we did,” “that doesn’t mean it is the end. That doesn’t mean we quit and go home. It is really kind of a beginning,” he said, pointing to the influence of women and younger voters.

Jane Fonda, who plays Nancy Reagan in Lee Daniels' upcoming movie "The Butler," said that the former First Lady was "happy" she was playing her, and that Reagan even answered questions she sent to her in preparation for the role.

"I know that she was happy that I was doing it, and I sent some questions to her that she answered," Fonda said on Sunday at a Q&A session after she was presented with the Los Angeles Press Club's Visionary Award.

The choice of Fonda, a longtime champion of progressive causes, was considered a provocative casting choice by Daniels, whose movie tells the story of a butler who served eight American presidents. Alan Rickman plays President Ronald Reagan.

"It is really about the history of race, a lot of the struggles around race in our country," Fonda said, adding that script is "magnificent."

Fonda said that she sent Nancy Reagan questions because she wanted to make sure her portrayal was accurate.

"They had be doing something that wasn't very nice," Fonda said. "And I said, 'if she really did this, I'll do it. But if it's made up, I don't want to do it.' I don't want to take cheap shots at her, because what she was was like a chief of staff. You couldn't get to him without going through her. She was a tremendous power broker. She was very important with them. And so I wanted to see her talking to James Baker about the need for a Russian summit, for example, so I wanted to know if she called him 'Jim' or 'James,' and put her arm through his, and things like that."

KNBC-TV's Robert Kovacik, who interviewed Fonda on stage, asked if she was surprised that Reagan was happy that she was in the role.

"Yes. Yes," Fonda said, "because back when she was feisty she wasn't nice to me. We all mellow. We all mellow."

Fonda said that she "loved" playing Reagan in the few days of shooting, and said, "I surely would love to do a whole movie of her."

Robert Redford presented the award to Fonda, and Jeff Daniels, her co-star in "The Newsroom," sang a song he composed for the occasion. Offering tributes via video were Jimmy Buffett, James Taylor, Ted Turner and Vanessa Redgrave.

Update: Redford, in noting Fonda's activism through the years, dubbed her "Jane of Arc."

Photo: Los Angeles Press Club.

More than a week since the election, the infamous video of Karl Rove challenging Fox News' call of Ohio for President Obama, and giving him the electoral votes for reelection, is still being dissected as a demonstration of the perils of partisan media.

This morning TV Newser has an interview with Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who relays where he was when Rove started challenging the projection, which other media pounced on as a kind of mutiny taking place on the Fair and Balanced ship.

Having already gone home shortly after 11 ET, Ailes said he turned on the TV “and the first thing I see is Rove saying something like ‘you called Ohio too early.’ And I thought, ‘What the? What is this?’”

Ailes said he instructed exec VP Michael Clemente to not go to commercial but to have Megyn Kelly "go confront the decision team. If you have to, make the decision team confront Rove."

“As it turned out Rove was wrong. He backed down. Our guys were right. We stayed with it. Megyn did her famous walk down the hall. And it all worked out.”

The full interview is here.

Fox News executives see the whole confrontation not as an example of the perils of having Rove, the brainchild of the pro-Romney SuperPAC American Crossroads, on the payroll, but as an example of their journalistic bonafides. The facts won out. Punditry was deflated. So is this a turning point in the spin cycle? Don't bet on it.

NBC today released video of the making of Vice President Joseph Biden's cameo on "Parks & Recreation" tonight, shot last summer in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.

In the video, Biden is taking direction on how best to do the scene, and at one point makes reference to his press secretary, Kendra Barkoff.

The White House also sent out a tweet tonight promoting the episode and a pic from the making of the show, right.

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When President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage in May, it injected a new sense of enthusiasm in Hollywood. Norman Lear wrote the campaign a check. It was the talk of a fundraiser, two days after the announcement, at the home of George Clooney. And it certainly helped sell out an LGBT event at the Beverly Hilton in early June, headlined by Ellen DeGeneres and Darren Criss.

Then, through the summer and into the fall, Obama's LGBT support seemed to fade from the spotlight.

Now a number of gay and lesbian orgs are highlighting data that shows that support in the LGBT community made the difference between victory and loss. Micah Cohen writes in the New York Times that support from gays and lesbians was enough to "have a claim on having been decisive," just as other minority groups helped put Obama over the top. Gay, lesbian and bisexual voters made up 5% of the electorate, and Obama garnered 76% of them, while Romney got just 22%, according to exit polls. Heterosexual voters made up 95%, and Obama and Mitt Romney each garnered 49% of that vote.

In 2008, exit polls showed John McCain got 27% of the LGBT vote, and Obama garnered 70%.

According to research from the Williams Institute at UCLA, the LGBT vote made a difference in Ohio and Florida. Without it, Romney would have won both states. Overall, had Obama not received the LGBT vote, his electoral college margin would have been 285, to Romney's 253. That's still enough to win, but much tighter than the 332-206 of the results. Likewise, if Romney had garnered majority support among LGBT voters, he would not have gotten an electoral college majority, but he would have won the popular vote.

Still unclear is exactly what issues made the difference in LGBT voters choosing Obama over Romney, or whether it was the stark contrast between the candidates on same-sex marriage, adoption, civil unions and other issues. The fact that Romney never really wanted to talk about LGBT issues during the general election campaign was in and of itself viewed as a sign that they were no longer an effective wedge issue for Republicans. Obama's dramatic announcement of support for same-sex marriage, rather than hurting, may very well have helped boost enthusiasm and energy, a turning point even if it didn't quite seem like it in the months that followed.

Bill O'Reilly took aim at "far left" critics of his election night comment that the "white establishment is now the minority" and that "there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama."

He singled out Variety's Brian Lowry for scorn, calling him a "far left loon" for a blog post that said he and Sean Hannity were "lamenting" the shift in the electorate. But Brian writes that what is puzzling is why O'Reilly is so eager "to publicize negative appraisals of himself that must leave his audience scratching their heads." Among the other clips that Hannity cites: John Leguizamo doing an ichat on HuffPostLive. Brian has a top ten list of why he should relish the moment.

O'Reilly says that the media "spun" that he was "lamenting" the vote when he was offering his analysis.

On that note, today another figure offered his analysis: Mitt Romney. He told donors that he lost because of Obama's "gifts" to young voters and minorities, like healthcare, "amnesty for children of illegals" and forgiven student loan interest. In other words, "stuff."

President Obama is scheduled to host a screening of "Lincoln" at the White House on Thursday, with cast and crew of the Oscar contender expected to attend.

The screening in the 42-seat White House Family Theater is closed press, but the venue is nevertheless considered one of the choice destinations for any studio release, elevating a movie's importance and its impact on American culture. (Here's a feature I did on the theater for Politico and Variety.)

The director of "Lincoln," Steven Spielberg, has been a guest at the White House for state dinners and, in 2010, a screening of "The Pacific," the HBO miniseries he produced with Tom Hanks. For that event, Spielberg even brought a small camcorder to record the arrival of Obama and other military brass. Spielberg also was a generous donor to Obama, co-hosting fundraisers and contributing more than $1 million to the pro-Obama SuperPAC Priorities USA Action.

The star of "Lincoln," Daniel Day-Lewis, drew laughs last week when, a day after Obama's re-election, he spoofed Clint Eastwood's "empty chair" speech. Day-Lewis was at the BAFTA Britannia Awards and, to an empty chair he brought out on stage, said, "I have to say that I am extremely grateful and glad, taking time out of his very busy schedule, that the recently re-elected president of this country was able to make it here tonight, thank you."

Spielberg withheld the release of Lincoln until after the election so that it wouldn't get caught up in the partisanship of the campaign. The movie itself is unique in that it focuses on just a few months of Lincoln's life, as he tries to get Congress to pass the 13th Amendment in the waning days of the war. The movie will perhaps leave viewers feeling better about today's partisan gridlock. The acrimony in Washington at the time was fierce --- and that is just the union side.

Expected to attend the screening are Spielberg, Day-Lewis, screenwriter Tony Kushner, producer Kathleen Kennedy as well as Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

 

I have been on a short post election break but will be back mid week.

The day after the election, the Washington Post published a lengthy piece that pulled the curtain on the Obama campaign and how it turned out the vote.

One detail: TV viewing habits. Scott Wilson and Philip Rucker write, "Some of that expensive new data included viewer habits, collected by cable companies, that provided clues to voter traits and preferences. In a race where middle-class female voters were courted by both camps, the Obama campaign advertised heavily on the CBS sitcom “2 Broke Girls,” according to a Yahoo analysis of Federal Elections Commission data. The campaign bought detailed voter updates, issued every two weeks.

"The tools allowed campaign officials to determine — on a house by house basis, rather than on a Zip-code-by-Zip-code basis – how people were likely to vote and whether they were likely to vote at all."

Ashley Judd, who campaigned for President Obama, and served as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention, is being talked up by Kentucky party officials as a possible contender in 2014 for the U.S. Senate, when Republican Mitch McConnell will face reelection.

The buzz was enough for her to release a statement today to Us magazine.

"I cherish Kentucky, heart and soul, and while I'm very honored by the consideration, we have just finished an election, so let's focus on coming together to keep moving America's families, and especially our kids, forward," Judd  said.

Big Democratic victories often inspire politically active celebrities to consider elective office, most often ending with a decision against it. After Obama win in 2008, Alec Baldwin talked of running for mayor of New York, and Val Kilmer huddled with D.C consultants in hopes of running for governor of New Mexico. But then realities set in: The good, the bad and the ugly of their public and private lives will be dredged up over and over again, without the protective layer of a personal publicity machine to help craft their image. You could argue that with TMZ and Us, stars really don't get that anymore, but the difference is that their is a wider amount of scrutiny that Judd or any other celebrities will face as a politician, namely personal finances and any statement they have ever made in the public eye.

ABC News has gathered some of the reaction to President Obama's reelection from conservative pundits and celebrities, including Donald Trump who deleted a series of egregious tweets from Tuesday night.

Last night, Jon Stewart said that Karl Rove's on-air dispute of Fox News' Ohio, followed by Megyn Kelly's trek to the statisticians, will "live forever."

 

On Fox News this morning, Rove is continuing to assess what went wrong.

There are many --- not all --- parallels to 2004, when post-first debate, John Kerry supporters had convinced themselves that their candidate had a genuine chance. On election day, leaked exit polling spread like wildfire, to the point where Kerry surrogates like Ted Kennedy were going on TV early in the evening as if victory was only a matter of time. In the end, the popular vote margin between Bush and Kerry was nearly the same, 50.7% vs. 48.3%, as Obama vs. Romney, currently 50.4% to 48.0%. Even the shell-shocked campaign was in the same city, Boston, as was Romney on election night. The difference is that Obama, with an expected 332 to Romney's 206, is expected to have a much greater electoral vote victory than Bush had.

Update: CBS News has a piece on the mood at Romney headquarters, and how it went from near certainty of a win to tears at a loss. Just as Democrats selectively read exit poll data from Zogby to predict a Kerry win, Republicans were relying on anecdotal turnout figures to assume their predictions were being confirmed. In 2004, Democrats assumed that enthusiasm at the prospect of ousting Bush would carry them to victory, but were blindsided by Republican turnout, especially among evangelical voters and social conservatives. In 2012, Republicans assumed enthusiasm on their side would win the day, but they were caught off guard by the turnout of Latinos, African Americans and young voters.

Vice President Joseph Biden will make a cameo appearance on NBC's "Parks and Recreation" next week, but the show's co-creator Michael Schur denies that it was partisan.

Schur wrote on Twitter, via his handle @KenTremendous, "It's being reported in some places that we did not air it pre-election because we 'did not want to offer equal time to Paul Ryan.' Ryan had not even been selected when we shot it. We didn't air it b/c there are complicated (and warranted) election rules governing any exposure for any candidate during a campaign. That's why the senators who appeared in the premiere were all either not running or retiring. It was not in any way a partisan decision."

Biden makes his cameo filmed at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, shot in the Vice President's ceremonial office, which was recently restored. The scenes were shot last July, and Biden appears with stars Amy Poehler and Adam Scott.

The show also shot scenes during the DC visit with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). That episode aired in September.

"Meeting Vice President Biden was a thrill for me and for Leslie," Poehler said in a statement. "He was a good sport and a great improviser. The Vice President maintained his composure while I harassed him and invaded his personal space. The nation of 'Parks & Rec' will be forever grateful."

As Hollywood looks to read the tea leaves in the wake of Tuesday's election, it's clear that the win for President Barack Obama won't result in a sea change in Washington's dealings with show business -- federal funding for public television and the arts will survive, key senators were re-elected and the social status quo has been preserved -- but there are ripple effects for Hollywood in a handful of areas.

Notably, the FCC is likely to see changes in its composition, if tradition on what happens in a second presidential term is any guide. Even before Obama's re-election, names were being floated regarding who might succeed FCC chairman Julius Genachowski if he decides to exit the post -- something that is seen as likely at some point next year. Likely candidates include Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, the two Democratic appointees on the commission.

What isn't likely to change: an FCC agenda that is big on laying the groundwork for the expansion of broadband.

Lobbyists working on behalf of various sectors of the entertainment biz likewise see a continuity of efforts in D.C. now that Obama has landed a second term.Cary Sherman, chairman of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, said that Tuesday's election results will have "really very little, if any" impact on the industry. Obama, he said, has been "solid on several of our issues, including trade and intellectual property protection."

Sherman also underscored that the new makeup of Congress won't substantially factor into lobbying efforts.

"Our job is to build coalitions and to work with both sides to achieve results that will benefit the music community," Sherman said. "Music is not a partisan thing. Both parties respect and appreciate the contributions of the music community to our culture and everyday lives, and that's not going to change whether a Democrat or Republican sits in the Oval Office."

The election results, both nationally and in California, may have deeper effects on particular Hollywood constituencies. Consider these areas:

Howard Berman loses to Brad Sherman: One of the nation's nastiest, and costliest, House races pitted two Democrats against each other because of redistricting. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) lost handily to Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) for a San Fernando Valley seat.

The entertainment industry had invested heavily in Berman's re-election, as his district not only encompassed many studios but he had, over the years, become a point man on all things intellectual property, enough to be dubbed "Hollywood's congressman." Just who steps in to serve that role on Capitol Hill now?

Showbiz, from studio chiefs to unions, invested heavily in trying to get Berman re-elected, so it can't be assumed that Sherman would just take that place. The election became personal, after all.

Another possibility is Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whose district includes parts of Burbank. But geography alone is not so much a factor as grasp of the issues and connections to other key members.

It may take some time to see who emerges.

"We certainly want someone to fill that role," said Richard Bates, senior VP of government relations for the Walt Disney Co. "I'm not sure anyone can step in to Howard's shoes."

Cary Sherman said, "He's left a lasting legacy that will benefit creators and California for many years. We expect that there will be others who will step up and be strong on creators' rights."

Music makes its mark: A surreal moment on election night took place at Stage 3 of Culver Studios, where the Obama campaign had set up a phone bank for hundreds of volunteers to call the swing states.

After their work was done, the election was called and supporters celebrated, and Stevie Wonder began an impromptu performance -- that is until TV screens showed Obama taking the stage in Chicago to the tune of Wonder's "Signed, Sealed and Delivered."

Wonder sang a version afterward, but his support signifies the extent to which musicians stepped out for political figures this election. On the campaign's final day, Bruce Springsteen trekked through swing states with Obama, and Kid Rock sang "Born Free" as the Romneys took the stage.

Perhaps never before have recording artists taken such a visible role in a presidential campaign. A campaign's theme song is more than an afterthought.

"It really speaks to the power of musicians as credible messengers and the influence of culture on people's lives," Sherman said. "Candidates understand and value that. And that's a great thing for our community."

But music also loses one of its champions: The surprise loss of Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) to Raul Ruiz for a Palm Springs-area congressional seat, means that the sector will be without one of its notable supporters.

Mack was a chief champion of a copyright extension act in 1998 that was named for her late husband, and, as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has been outspoken in bolstering copyright causes with the growth of file-sharing and online music services.

She also was a strong backer of the Performance Rights Act, a bill to provide artists and labels with compensation when their songs were played by radio broadcasters.

Big Bird lives: President Obama's re-election means that federal funding of public broadcasting is spared. His administration has retained funding even in the midst of a budget-cutting Congress, but advocates saw the possibility of Mitt Romney's election as a genuine threat.

Romney singled out PBS for cuts at the first debate, inspiring an entire meme that Big Bird was about to be placed on the endangered species list.

The whole debate put public broadcasting in the crosshairs of a partisan election, a place that many leaders would prefer not to be. In fact, Patrick Butler, president of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, issued a statement Wednesday in which he said he hoped that the election "will mark a turning point for public television and a restoration of the bipartisan support for our work."

LGBT pride prospers: Outside of Obama's victory, the headline out of Tuesday's results was gains for the LGBT movement. Four states had marriage on the ballot, and all four sided with same-sex nuptials.

The shift in public sentiment, on the single best electoral night for the LGBT community, is all the more amazing given that just California passed Proposition 8 four years ago and a slew of gay-marriage bans passed on state ballots in 2004.

Hollywood has had a hand in the reversal of fortune, in terms of mustering money, time and content.

Vice President Joseph Biden earlier this year cited TV's "Will & Grace" as a reason for the opinion shift, but the most surprising thing may be how little same-sex marriage was a wedge issue in this campaign. Just about the closest that Romney came to bringing up the issue was when he cited "Modern Family" as his favorite TV show.

"When the history books are written, 2012 will be remembered as the year when LGBT Americans won decisively at the ballot box," said Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin.

PBS's coverage may not have had the pizazz of the commercial networks, but it came out a winner in the results.

Mitt Romney campaigned on plans to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting, stirring a Big Bird meme in social media, a Million Puppet March protest (which was actually just a few hundred) and a new debate on the value of government-backed programming.

Patrick Butler, the president and CEO of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, said in a statement, "We hope these elections will mark a turning point for public television and a restoration of the bipartisan support for our work that has been a hallmark of our experience since President Eisenhower first proposed a national commitment to educational television in the National Defense Education Act of 1958.

"Public television remains profoundly committed to this education mission, and we are deploying all the tools of new technology to perform that mission more successfully and comprehensively than ever before."

NBC drew the most viewers to its election night coverage, while CNN topped among the cable news networks.

Variety's Rick Kissell reports the preliminary numbers here.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), a key champion for entertainment industry copyright initiatives in Congress, lost his race for a San Fernando Valley House seat to fellow Democrat Brad Sherman,

Berman issued a statement early this morning conceding the race.

A big upset was in the race for a Palm Springs area congressional seat, where Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) was losing her seat to Democrat Raul Ruiz. She had held the seat since she was elected to succeed her husband, Sonny Bono, for a seat representing the area. She since remarried Connie Mack IV, who himself lost a bid for a Senate seat in Florida on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif) was opening up a lead on his challenger, Bill Bloomfield, an independent, after a tight race in the early vote count.

Volunteers at the Obama campaign phone bank in Culver City finished their day to Stevie Wonder performing for them after networks called the election for the president.

As Obama took the stage in Chicago to "Signed, Sealed and Delivered," a Wonder standard, the singer stopped his performance in Culver City to listen to reelected president's speech. Then Wonder sang the song himself.

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Same-sex marriage won at the ballot box in Maine and Maryland, and it may very well pass in Washington and a ban looked headed to defeat in Minnesota. With the victory of Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the Senate, this was the best election night so far for the LGBT movement.

"When the history books are written, 2012 will be remembered as the year when LGBT Americans won decisively at the ballot box," said Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin. "The dreams of millions of fair-minded Americans were realized as discrimination crumbled and equality prevailed."

Other victories came in Iowa, where a Supreme Court judge who voted for same-sex marriage was returned to office.

President Obama's victory came after he endorsed same-sex marriage --- an issue that once was considered a liability but instead failed to become a talking point among his opponents in the campaign. In fact, it wasn't even broached during the debates. According to HRC, Obama's support among gays and lesbians jumped to 77%, up from 70% in 2008.

This election was far different from 2004, when a series of same-sex marriage bans passed across the country, and even from 2008, when California passed Proposition 8.

Minnesota's apparent vote against a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage does not mean that gay nuptials are legal in that state, as it already is banned by state law. But it opens to door to be challenged in state courts, and certainly is a push back against the Catholic Church which had pushed the measure. Catholic leaders sent pleas to parishoners to vote for the measure, but even some parish priests refused to take a stand on the issue.

11:20 p.m.: Our Variety story for Wednesday's paper --- headline Barack of Ages --- is here, with reaction from entertainment leaders.

10:40 p.m.: "The task of protecting our union moves forward," Obama opens.

10:39 p.m.: Obama and his family take the stage in Chicago.

10:25 p.m.: NBC News was the first to call the race for Obama, at 8:12 p.m. PT

10:22 p.m.: MPAA chairman Chris Dodd issued this statement. "I congratulate Barack Obama on his victory tonight. President Obama has demonstrated a great understanding of the importance of intellectual property to the fundamental strength of the American economy.  In an era of partisan discord, there is bipartisan agreement that protecting American creativity and innovation is critical to our competitive edge in the global marketplace.  I look forward to continuing to work closely with the Obama Administration to ensure the creative industries have every opportunity to thrive."

9:58 p.m.: Romney on Obama and his supporters, "I wish all of them well...I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation."

9:56 p.m.: Romney has conceded, a number of news networks report, and will deliver a speech within minutes.

9:53 p.m.: Ken Solomon, a major Obama donor and CEO of the Tennis Channel, said that when Ohio was called for Obama, "everyone floated off the floor." Will.i.am, Davis Guggenheim and Alfre Woodard are among the industry figures also there.

9:38 p.m.: Ben Affleck emailed Variety's Rachel Abrams about Obama's victory: "My mom moved to florida for months to work on the campaign. She slept on a couch and moved away from home. She is seventy. Today she told me about knocking on doors, talking to people, giving rides--she stood in line for two hours today for someone who otherwise would not have voted. She was proud that she added one vote to the tally on election day.

"That is who I celebrate today. I don't care who you vote for but if you give three months of your life to the democratic process--tonight is about you. I am thrilled tonight for my mom and everyone like her on both sides who care enough about the country to work for it. They are my heroes."
 

9:33 p.m.: The side drama tonight is on Fox News, where Karl Rove refused to concede Ohio even though the network called it for Obama. Rove called it "premature." Megyn Kelly went backstage to confirm with the net's research team, who expressed confidence in the call. In any case, Variety's Brian Lowry believes Obama's reelection will be good for Fox News.

9:22 p.m.: NPR has called Virginia for Obama.

9:20 p.m.: Marriage equality has passed in Maryland, too.

9:14 p.m.: Same-sex marriage advocates are celebrating the passage of an initiative legalizing gay nuptials in Maine.

“This is a landmark election for marriage equality and we will forever look back at this year as a critical turning point in the movement for full citizenship for LGBT people," said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign. "Voters in Maine came to the common-sense conclusion that all people deserve the ability to make loving, lifelong commitments through marriage."

The victory marked a turning point in the same-sex marriage movement, as supporters had never succeeded at the ballot box and lost votes 32 other times.

“Today, a majority in Maine voted in favor of loving and committed same-sex couples seeking the freedom to marry,” said Marc Solomon. national campaign director Freedom to Marry. “Now the commitment gay and lesbian couples have made in life will be respected equally under the law, celebrated before their loved ones, and called what it is: marriage.”

“It’s hard to overstate the national significance of this vote,” Solomon said. “For years, our opponents have argued that we could not win a majority vote at the ballot. Today, Maine voters proved them wrong, standing up for the Golden Rule and for freedom for all Mainers.”

Marriage initiatives also were leading in Maryland and Washington.

8:31 p.m.: NBC News also says that Democrats will retain control of the Senate.

8:15 p.m.: NBC News and Fox News call Ohio for Obama, putting him over the top. He is reelected.

8:10 p.m.: NBC News says Obama wins Iowa. He's at 249 to Romney's 203. Iowa gave Obama his first big victory in the 2008 primary.

8:07 p.m.: NBC says that Romney is the "apparent winner" for Romney, which means some vote still to be counted but a win looks likely.

8:06 p.m.: Gay marriage and marijuana legalization initiatives across the country are winning. So far.

8:00 p.m.: Obama wins California, Hawaii and Washington, as expected. Obama is now at 243, Romney at 188.Romney wins Idaho.

8:00 p.m.: The Denver Post has called Colorado for Obama, giving him another avenue to get to 270.

7:59 p.m.: The AP has called North Carolina for Romney. Tim Kaine declared winner in Virginia Senate race over George Allen.

7:21 p.m.: If Tammy Baldwin wins, as many believe she will, she will be the first openly gay member of the Senate, in a race where that face rarely was raised in her campaign.

7:13 p.m.: Tammy Duckworth is elected to the House in Illinois, defeating Republican Joe Walsh.

7:13 p.m.: Same-sex marriage leads in Maine and Maryland, but the returns are still early.

7:08 p.m.: Claire McCaskill is the projected winner of a Senate seat in Missouri over Todd Akin. Her Senate seat was viewed as the most vulnerable going in to the 2012 race. But Akin's comments about rape scuttled his chance, even though some polls came out that showed a tight contest.

7:02 p.m.: Twitter has announced that it has reached 20 million election related tweets, making today the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history.

6:58 p.m.: ABC News is calling Minnesota for Obama. This is not a surprise, but Romney's campaign did stage a last minute effort. Minnesota continues its streak of being the only state in the country to blue for every election since 1972. That year, it went for Nixon.

6:49 p.m.: More big calls: New Hampshire for Obama, and Democrat Joe Donnelly wins a Senate seat in Indiana over Republican Richard Mourdock. There are reports that Democrat Tammy Baldwin is winning in Wisconsin, although waiting for more network projections.

6:44 p.m.: And now, NBC calls Elizabeth Warren to win the Massachusetts Senate seat, which drew a flood of Hollywood money. Democrats retake the seat that was held by Edward Kennedy. And the grandson of Robert Kennedy, Joseph Kennedy III, to Barney Frank's House seat. That returns a Kennedy to Congress after a two-year absence.

6:41 p.m.: Slate's Dave Weigel says on Twitter that Romney-Ryan is the first presidential ticket to lose both candidates' home states since George McGovern and Sargent Shriver in 1972.

6:39 p.m.: Tom Brokaw: "We have a really fractured American political culture at the moment, and the question is how do you heal it once it is all over." He points out the apparent zig zag in opinion. Obama wins Wisconsin, after Gov. Scott Walker won the recall just six months ago. "Noting lasts for more than 20 minutes."

6:37 p.m.: Ohio is looking to be the decisive state. If Obama wins it, it is pretty much over, give expected wins in the west. But there is still a substantial amount of Ohio vote to be counted.

6:35 p.m.: Brian Williams says that there is a "rogue retweet" going around that we have called Massachusetts for Elizabeth Warren. "That is not the case."

6:29 p.m.: A word of warning: Warren leads Scott Brown in Massachusetts, but rhe race is not yet called. Many tweets claiming that NBC has called the race, but that is not the case. Networks, however, are calling Wisconsin for Obama. It means that Paul Ryan did not capture his home state.

6:27 p.m.: AP has called the Ohio Senate seat for incumbent Sherrod Brown, more evidence that Democrats will retain control of the chamber.

6:22 p.m.: An early indication of a long night? Al Gore says, on Twitter, "We have the ability to let everyone who is eligible to vote vote and we need a bipartisan effort to make it happen." Deja vu?: Florida, by the way, is down to a 13,000 vote difference, with Obama in the lead.

6:20 p.m.: Networks are calling Pennsylvania for Obama, a blow to Romney's road to 270.

6:19 p.m.: Andy Spahn, an Obama campaign bundler and political adviser to Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, is in Chicago and says via e-mail: "My take is we win!"

6:14 p.m.: On Twitter are reports that NBC has projected Elizabeth Warren as the winner of the Massachusetts Senate race, although other networks have yet to follow.

6:12 p.m.: CNN and other networks are projecting that Republicans will retain control of the House. A month ago, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had predicted a Democratic win was very possible.

6:04 p.m.: A new batch of states, but no battlegrounds called. Michigan is called for Obama. Romney leads in North Carolina, and things look better for him in Virginia. But Florida is still close, with Obama in the lead. Some Republicans are nervous about the result in the Sunshine State. No surprise: Romney wins Texas, Obama wins New York.

5:54 p.m.: A distinction of following Twitter versus following the news networks. In the latter, there's much more restraint in identifying trends. Meanwhile, a lot of Obama supporters, like Ricky Martin, are tweeting out pleas for those waiting in line to stay there and vote.

5:48 p.m.: In Maryland, a ballot initiative asking voters to approve same-sex marriage is leading, but it is still too early to call, as is the case with an initiatibe in Maine. Other initiatives are on the ballot in Minnesota and Washington.

5:31 p.m.: Tennis Channel Ken Solomon, Southern California co-chair of President Obama's reelection finance team, is in Chicago today, along with a number of entertainment industry bundlers. He said that there was "a good feeling," but that they were still "nervous." What was impressive was the Obama team's ground game, he said. "The talk is over. We're just working. It's as simple as that." he was optimistic himself, and said, "I wouldn't say they are rose colored glasses, but they have a slight tint."

5:29 p.m.: Ramesh Ponnuru on Twitter: "Sharp negative turn in the mood of conservatives on twitter." There's still a long way to go, although there are good signs that Democrats will retain control of the Senate.

5:09 p.m.: "Continue to hone in on it, Chuck Todd. There's only pride in it," Brian Williams tells the White House correspondent and vote guru. Is this a Ratherism?

5:01 p.m.: As a slew of states report in, Twitter is abuzz with reports of exit polls and what it says for the rest of the night. If anyone was around in 2004, you'll remember how notoriously unreliable they are, although the accuracy changes as the day goes on and real vote is factored in.

Meanwhile, the networks are calling a slew of races, with no surprises. Polls are closed in Pennsylvania, but it is too "early" to call. Lots of attention on Florida, where Obama has a slight lead. NBC says Obama won the early vote by 50,000 votes.

4:32 p.m.: NBC says that Ohio and North Carolina are too close to call, while Romney wins West Virginia. It may be a very long night. As expected, Romney takes West Virginia.

4:16 p.m.: Also, NPR has called Georgia and South Carolina for Romney.

4 p.m.: The TV networks started their coverage at 4 p.m. PT, with Virginia, a key swing state, too close to call.

As expected, Romney is projected to take Indiana and Kentucky, Obama taking Vermont.

 

 

 

If you stop by Culver Studios today, you might hear this: "Hi ... this is Michael Lynton, and I'm a volunteer with Organizing for America, President Obama's grassroots campaign. How are you?"

Lynton, along with wife Jamie, stopped by the Culver City phone bank on election day, where organizers expected between 600 and 700 volunteers to pass through the doors of soundstage 3. The Sony topper missed co-chairman Amy Pascal, who had already volunteered before 9 a.m.

Campaign bundler Jamie Lynton sported a custom-made silver necklace with the Obama rising sun logo. Top California Obama campaign staffer Mary Jane Stevenson gave Lynton the necklace after the 2008 election. Jamie Lynton began volunteering for Obama since "the day he announced" in 2007.

"I will be here until we get to declare victory. I sent out an email to about 550 people and tell them to get out here," Jamie Lynton said, moments before her husband walked up. The two jokingly discussed whether their eldest daughter had cut school to make phone banking calls with her parents.

Bizzers including Cameron Crowe and Julia Louis-Dreyfus had also stopped by to cold call residents in states including Colorado, Ohio and Wisconsin (Dreyfus even made a video of herself making calls, available on her website).

Volunteers estimated that California had made as many as a million calls on Monday, making it one of the most actively grassroots non-battleground states.

Several volunteers nearly wandered into the soundstage next door, where dozens of women were heading into a live taping of "The Ricki Lake Show."

Asked what the atmosphere was like at the nearby Sony lot, Michael Lynton said there was support for both sides, although he pointed out that most of the support for Republican nominee Mitt Romney came less from inside Sony and more from producers and others around the lot.

By Rachel Abrams

As voters lined up, sometimes to hourslong waits at the polls, show biz supporters of President Obama and Mitt Romney helped make the case for their candidate in the waning hours of the election.

On a soundstage at Culver Studios, the Obama campaign had set up a phone bank where hundreds of volunteers were calling swing states. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Cameron Crowe made calls on Monday, and Burt Bacharach and Neil Diamond gave an impromptu performance on Sunday night.

During a concert in Madison, Wis,, midway through singing “Blowin in the Wind,” Bob Dylan predicted an Obama “landslide.”

Don’t believe the media. I think it’s going to be a landslide,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

Bruce Springsteen performed at Obama’s final rally in Des Moines on Monday night, where the president’s eyes were watery as he recounted the start of his presidential run in the state in 2007. In Manchester, N.H., Kid Rock stood on the top of a piano and performed “Born Free” as Mitt and Ann Romney came onstage.

“I have to say thank you to Kid Rock,” Ann Romney said. “Let me tell you we are kids of Detroit, Kid Rock and I are, and Mitt is a kid of Detroit and we love Michigan we love Kid Rock we love that he stood up for us and helped us out for all this time.”

The major networks prepared to showcase their coverage, with ABC News staging a large presence in Times Square, NBC News creating a “Democracy Plaza” at Rockfeller Center and CNN displaying a running tally of electoral votes via a light display atop the Empire State building.

On Twitter, entertainment figures implored followers to vote, and some, like Mark Ruffalo, urged them to report anything out of the ordinary at the polls, with concerns over voter supression. “Why has the GOP added a secret software patch to voting machines?” Roger Ebert said in a tweet.

“Good luck Mr. President, we stand by you no matter what and are thinking of you today. I’ll never forget what you did for DADT,” wrote Lady Gaga.

On the other side of the spectrum, Dennis Miller, who has campaign for Romney, wrote, “You want a testimony to Romney’s governing abilities? He got things done in Massachusetts with a legislature full of Elizabeth Warrens.”

These were the days when anchors lit up cigarettes on camera. Here's footage from NBC's coverage of election night 1948, when President Harry Truman unexpectedly won reelection over Thomas Dewey. Technology has come a long way, to say the least.

 

Then there is the election of 1960, when it is the morning after the election when it becomes clear that John F. Kennedy has been elected president.

Performers including Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z and Ricky Martin appeared for President Obama, and Kid Rock and Meat Loaf stumped for Mitt Romney in the final day of the 2012 presidential race on Monday, but there is much more at stake for showbiz in this election than stars and their political stripes.

While a second Obama term would signal status quo on a whole host of industry-related issues, a Romney win would have implications for arts funding, public television, indecency enforcement, media consolidation and net neutrality.

A power shift could mean reorienting lobbying strategy on some issues in D.C., particularly for an industry in which virtually all of the studio chiefs have contributed to the Obama campaign. And even beyond showbiz-centric issues, industry activists would find themselves, at least initially, without significant White House contacts, the kind of access over the past four years that has seen George Clooney, Brad Pitt and others gain entree to the Oval Office to discuss signature causes.

Here's a rundown of the significant areas that could be affected by the results of Tuesday's election:

FCC chairman: There is some expectation that even if Obama wins re-election, Julius Genachowski will step down as chairman, given the past tendency of agency chieftains to see a second term as a jumping-off point. If Romney wins, he will be able to obtain an FCC Republican majority and appoint a new chief. Current commissioner Robert McDowell is one of the names mentioned, as well as communications attorney Bryan Tramont and John Kneuer, former head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Net neutrality: Many Republicans detest the FCC's net neutrality rules as interfering with a bright spot of the American economy, and a GOP-dominated FCC could rollback regulations or eliminate them altogether. They would be reopening a can of worms, but the GOP saw the issue as important enough to include in their party platform. And even if Obama is re-elected, the FCC may have to grapple with it anyway. Verizon is challenging the open Internet guidelines in court on the grounds that the FCC lacks the authority to implement them.

Spectrum: One of Genachowski's signature initiatives has been the expansion of broadband infrastructure, and a part of that has been freeing up spectrum from broadcasters for wireless use. Although broadcasters have been wary of plans toward voluntary incentive auctions, Congress sees them as a way to collect additional revenue to pay down the deficit. A Romney administration would oversee the first of these auctions, currently expected in 2014, and while it would be difficult to turn back the clock given bipartisan passage, broadcasters are closely watching to see that their reach is preserved as details are worked out.

Piracy: In campaign rhetoric, Romney has pledged to get tough on China, and has even slammed Obama for not doing enough to protect intellectual property there. But it's uncertain how much different Romney's approach to piracy would be to Obama's. The present administration has emphasized crackdowns led by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, but it also expressed opposition to parts of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which helped scuttle the legislation earlier this year. Yet Romney opposed SOPA, too. A factor in whether any new legislation is introduced in the next Congress -- and that is a big if -- may be what role the White House takes in helping to frame the issue and perhaps mediate between sides to better line up support on Capitol Hill.

Media consolidation: Republicans traditionally have taken more of a hands-off approach when it comes to mergers in general, and there are many reasons to believe that would be true in a Romney administration. But even Genachowski has shown a willingness to examine media-ownership rules, which include a prohibition on owning newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market. A Republican-dominated FCC could be driven to speed up the process of abandoning such constraints.

Talking Points Memo and Politico report that President Obama connected Bruce Springsteen, riding with him on Air Force One, to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of the Boss' biggest fans.

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg last summer wrote an entire story about Christie's love of Springsteen, attending a concert with him, while the singer largely ignored the governor.

That has changed after Hurricane Sandy, which saw Christie praising Obama for his response to the storm, and Springsteen also giving high marks to the governor of the Garden State.

According to Politico, Obama was on the phone with Christie when he told him he had someone who wanted to speak to him. That was when he handed the phone over to Springsteen. At a press conference, Christie described the experience of gaining Springsteen's friendship.

A clip of Jay-Z's introduction of Obama at a Columbus rally is below, along with a version of "99 Problems." In the rapper's rendition of the latter, he inserted "Mitt" for "bitch," as he was told "no colorful language."

Bruce Springsteen is traveling on Air Force One with President Obama today, performing at three rallies starting with an event this morning in Madison, Wis. Springsteen already has spent two other days on the campaign trail for Obama, who has coopted one of the Boss' songs, "We Take Care of Our Own," as a campaign anthem.

Obama said at the Madison rally, "I can't thank him enough for everything that he’s done for this campaign.  "He is an American treasure.  He gets embarrassed when you talk about him that way.  But he tells the story of what our country is, and what it should be, and what it can be.  And I get to fly around with him on the last day that I will ever campaign -- so that’s not a bad way to end things."

This is Springsteen's first trip on Air Force One, he told pool reporters.

Photo from Obama campaign.

Here's Springsteen today:

Other than the presidential race, there are a bevy of downballot contests that have drawn interest from industry activists, amateur politicos and corporate moguls and union chiefs. Here is a list of contests drawing some of the biggest interest from Hollywood players. It is a snapshot --- and by no means complete.

Berman vs. Sherman: There's no doubt who show biz is backing in this nasty, bitter and expensive race pitting two Democrats against each other in Hollywood's backyard. Rep. Howard Berman is the top recipient of show biz contributions among all candidates, save for President Obama and Mitt Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. There's a reason for it: Hollywood has lined up behind him, as he is viewed as one of the most strident champions of copyright issues on Capitol Hill, enough to where he has been dubbed "Hollywood's congressman." His district lies in the San Fernando Valley, where he is in an uphill battle against Rep. Brad Sherman, who often falls in the same pattern with Berman when it comes to piracy issues but who simply rubs many in the show biz lobby the wrong way. That is why many of Berman's backers saw an opening when Sherman grab-hugged him at a recent debate, and said to him, loudly, "Howard, you want to get into this?" Yet polls still show Sherman with a significant lead, and a loss by Berman will put the onus on the show biz lobby to find a new point person to champion IP issues.

McCaskill vs. Akin: Claire McCaskill has collected more show biz contributions than any other Senate candidate in a competitive election, as her unlikely reelection in an ever-reddish state suddenly became plausible with a far right candidate Todd Akin, who badly stumbled over the issue of rape. The ignited a wave of public and financial support for McCaskill, who has seem to overcome traditional attacks on middle-America Democrats who take show biz money.

Warren vs. Brown: If there is a 'star" challenger seeking a Senate seat this year, it is Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor who became a star with her criticism of the financial industry, trying to unseat Republican Scott Brown in  heavily Democratic Massachusetts. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser for her in May, and Norman Lear provided early support at an event he hosted last year. In fact, Brown's allies have tried to make an issue of Warren's out-of-state Hollywood support, although that issue has faded as Warren has gotten a boost in the polls.

Baldwin vs. Thompson: This Wisconsin Senate race between Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Tommy Thompson has been brutal, but surprisingly free of much talk at all about Baldwin's sexual orientation. If she wins, she will be the first openly gay U.S. senator. She's drawn support from Hollywood's LGBT community, including Blake Byrne, Rich Ross and Bruce Cohen.

Duckworth vs. Walsh: Showbiz liberals crave a chance to defeat an outspoken conservative firebrand, and they may have found their opportunity in the House seat held by Tea Partier Joe Walsh. Duckworth has been to Los Angeles to raise money, drawing support from none other than the other Joe Walsh, the Eagles singer and guitarist.

Marriage Equality: A quartet of same-sex marriage ballot initiatives in Minnesota, Maine, Washington and Maryland has drawn interest and money from the likes of Lady Gaga and Brad Pitt, hopeful that marriage equality will prevail in at least one of the elections. If so, champions of same-sex marriage say that they will have denied opponents a talking point, that voters in 32 elections have consistently decided in favor of marriage being only between a man and a woman. The Supreme Court will decide later in November whether to take the Prop 8 case and/or challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. Some observers suggest that the November result could, in their own way, have an impact on what the justices decide.

California's Propositions:

Proposition 30: California Gov. Jerry Brown's call to raise taxes on wealthy residents, as a way to resolve persistent budget crises, means higher taxes for many in Hollywood, but Brown has tried to appeal to education advocates by highlighting how the measure will prevent severe cuts. Although the initiative has led in the polls, its margins have fallen in recent weeks.

Proposition 32: Show biz unions are among organized labor fighting this initiative that would prohibit unions from using payroll deducted funds for political purposes. It prohibits union and corporate contributions to candidates and their committees, but critics, like SAG-AFTRA's Gabrielle Carteris, calls it a "sham." She says that loopholes in the initiative still would allow corporations to funnel money into the political process while organized labor would be sidelined.

Proposition 34: The initiative to repeal California's death penalty has drawn the financial support of Barry Meyer, J.J. Abrams, Judd Apatow, the Saul Zaentz Co. and Gary David Goldberg, among others, while Martin Sheen, a longtime foe of executions, has narrated commercial spots. A coalition of peace officers associations oppose the initiative. Support was growing in a recent Field Poll, although passage will depend on late deciders who have a history of voting no.

Proposition 37: A host of industry figures, including Marisa Tomei and James Franco, have campaigned for this initiative to require labeling of genetically engineered food. It may be a no brainer to health advocates and organic enthusiasts, but the food industry is mounting a heavy campaign against it, warning of higher grocery bills for the average Californian.

Neil Diamond and Burt Bacharach pitched in at an Obama campaign phone bank set up on a Culver Studios soundstage, joining about 150 volunteers there on Sunday night. After making calls to voters, Bacharach and Diamond sang for the volunteers, including "What the World Needs Now" and "Love, Sweet Love," according to Ken Solomon, the CEO of Tennis Channel and Southern California co-chair of Obama's finance team. "It was amazing, very organic, very late 60s like," Solomon said, adding that much of the crowd sang along. Solomon's photo at right.

Hollywood figures from the left and the right weighed in in the final weekend before the election, with producers and writers canvassing in swing states, stars pushing a flood of new get-out-the-vote Web videos and a collection of musical artists hitting the trail with President Obama and Mitt Romney to rally supporters.

Rupert Murdoch, one of the few outspoken media CEOs who is backing Romney, took to Twitter at several points during the weekend to offer his latest views of the state of the race. He wrote Sunday morning, "Seems slight edge to Obama, but Romney seeing small late surge. Many state polls look unreliable."

Norman Lear, writing at the Huffington Post, implored voters to consider the consequences of a Romney win on the Supreme Court. But in an interview, he predicted an Obama win on Tuesday.

Though Obama's campaign doesn't have the historic import of four years ago, entertainment supporters tried to convey a sense of urgency in getting out the vote, warning of the consequences if Romney prevails on Tuesday.

Will.i.am debuted a new video, "#GreatTimes," aimed at getting voters to the polls and trying to capture some of the inspiration of his 2008 hit "Yes, We Can." In a video for the Obama campaign, Will Ferrell pledged to cook dinner, move furniture or even eat garbage if that is what it took to get viewers to the polls. Cher and Kathy Griffin warned that, in Griffin's words, "Romney and his buddies are trying to turn back time on women's rights." "This is sick stuff," Cher said of statements by Richard Mourdock, GOP Senate candidate in Indiana.

A satirical video from Joss Whedon, in which he posits that Romney would be the best candidate to "finally put this country back on the path to a zombie apocalypse," passed 6.1 million views on YouTube, making it one of the most popular viral videos of the election cycle. Its popularity was perhaps driven not just by pickup in the national media but by Whedon's huge following as creator of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" and director and writer of "The Avengers." Although a whimsical attack on Romney, the video generally got a favorable reaction from comments posted at one of Whedon's fan sites, Whedonesque.

The videos extended to other races. James Franco, Marisa Tomei and other celebrities headlined a series of spots in favor of California's Proposition 37, which would require labeling of genetically engineered foods, while Lady Gaga taped a get-out-the-vote video to drum up support for a quartet of same-sex marriage initiatives on ballots in Minnesota, Maryland, Maine and Washington.

Political consultant Lara Bergthold, who as deputy national political director for John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 organized industry surrogates and support that year, said that the viral videos "are great at doing two things: creating a cool vibe for citizenship that gives young people the feeling that they're missing out if they're not participating. (It) inserts humor into a process that by now feels dominated by negative ads and excessive voter contact. I think this year's videos have been the best ever."

Bergthold, now an adviser to Lear, was in Nevada along with a group of volunteers from Los Angeles who trekked to Las Vegas to canvass for the Obama campaign. They included Marti Noxon, Sarah Timberman, Ed Redlich, Jane Cha, Rob Ramsey, Vince Ventresca and Monica Rosenthal.

A phone bank is set up at Culver Studios in Culver City, where volunteers are contacting voters in swing states. Among those making calls: Burt Bacharach and Neil Diamond. "If I call you, don't hang up. It's really me and I need you," Diamond tweeted on Sunday evening.

Others were dispatched to the crucial swing state of Ohio. One of Obama's campaign bundlers, Noah Mamet, a political and philanthropic consultant with a specialty in entertainment, was with three others from his L.A. office in Cincinnati, where they knocked "on over a thousand doors," he said.

"The enthusiasm is very high and people are motivated to vote," Mamet said. "It is also true that some voters in Ohio just want the election to be over since they've in inundated most of the year."

He added, "The Obama campaign has assembled the best field operation in the history of American politics and the feeling is the Romney campaign, based mostly on paid media, won't be able to compete with the massive statewide Democratic operation in turning out actual voters on Tuesday."

Just about all polls point to a nailbiter of an election night on Tuesday, which means that for the flood of media coverage the onus will be on making close calls rather than making maximum use of commentary.

Despite deploying new sets, unveiling all sorts of new ways to crunch results and including star anchors and reporters throughout the night, some executives say they are entering the final day knowing that getting it right will be more important than getting it first. As much as the debacle of 2000 is often cited as the example to avoid --- when major news organizations called Florida for Al Gore, then for George Bush, then put it back into the tossup category --- the temptation this cycle is from social media, where tidbits of misinformation have occasionally seeped into coverage as fact.

Sam Feist, Washington bureau chief and senior vice president at CNN, said, “Being first is not one of my goals. It is not part of my thinking. I just want to be right. It is far more important to be right than to be first.”

Echoing his sentiments was Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, vice president of CBS News: “Accuracy comes way before trying to get it first. It’s the way we carry out our news business on CBS on a regular basis.”

Cabler CNN has assembled what Feist calls an “extraordinary team of statisticians and political scientists” to monitor the results, as well as field reporting teams of 25 to 30 correspondents who are deployed in the battleground states. The emphasis is on access to people who are counting the ballots --- like board of elections officials and Secretary of States offices --- something that came in handy in the wee hours of the Iowa caucus vote. That was when reporters tracked down Edith Pfeffer and Carolyn Tallet, members of the GOP in Clinton County, Iowa, and went live on CNN to try to clear up a voting inconsistency that, for that night anyway, called the race for Mitt Romney.

“You can’t set a value on boots on the ground in a situation like this,” Feist says.

CNN’s coverage will be based on its new set in Washington, which was designed with election night in mind. It features two “magic walls,” one that will show exit polls and another that will show county-by-county vote data, along with “virtual studio” to present a “virtual Senate,” depicting the chamber and its balance of power. The idea is to deploy technology that are “helping to tell a story for the viewers.” “No holograms,” Feist said.

Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper will be in Washington, with Candy Crowley in Boston and Erin Burnett in Ohio, as well as John King at the magic wall, among other deployments. All told, CNN is planning 40 straight hours of live coverage.

CBS, on the other hand, will avoid the use of tech add-ons during the broadcast. “We’re not big into gadgets,” Ciprian-Matthews told Variety. “Reporting the stories and the actual coverage is much more important than the toys.”

CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley is slated to lead the net’s seven hours of election coverage from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. ET in Gotham, though CBS notes it is prepared to go later into the night should the race call for extended coverage. Pelley will be joined by a journo team including “Fact The Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer, “CBS This Morning” co-host Norah O’Donnell and CBS News political director John Dickerson. The broadcast network also will have correspondents reporting from battleground states throughout the night.

Shouting "Elmo! We won't go," hundreds of protesters marched in Washington on Saturday for the Million Puppet March, protesting calls to zero out federal funding for PBS and other public broadcasting entitites.

The event was billed as non-partisan, but it was inspired by Romney's pledge in the first presidential debate to cut federal funding for public TV, saying that the government could not afford it at a time when it is borrowing from China to make up for record budget deficits.

The protest --- which some estimates said drew as many as 1,000 people --- started at Lincoln Park and went to the reflecting pool at the U.S. Capitol. It was the brainchild of Chris Mecham, an Idaho political science major at Boise State University, and Michael Bellavia, a Los Angeles producer and president of Animax, an animation and interactive production studio.

Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings, a proponent of same-sex marriage who has been campaigning against a marriage amendment in the state, quit a blogging gig with the St. Paul Pioneer Press after the paper ran an editorial taking a neutral position that critics say is anything but.

Kluwe wrote on Twitter, "My main issue with the Pioneer Press editorial is this: It's a lie. I have no problem with them taking a position I disagree with. What concerns me is them presenting a completely biased piece (word choice, examples used, conclusions) as a neutral position. That's not only irresponsible journalism, it's massively hypocritical.

"Have the courage of your convictions. Attach your name to what you believe in. Don't try to confuse people through obfuscation and selected presentation of arguments. It ruins discussion, and you should be ashamed. I will not abide lying. A stable society has to be built on a foundation of trust, and that editorial just eroded some of it away."

Kluwe said that he will try to find a new blogging gig.

The Pioneer Press editorial board said that they do not take positions on ballot initiatives, but they also took issue with same-sex marriage supporters efforts.

They wrote, "As it turns out, the debate isn't exactly about equal rights and privileges. Opponents of the measure are clear that they do not want to settle for a civil union status that would guarantee the same rights and privileges to same-sex unions that are given to traditional marriages. It is "marriage" that they want. In effect, a union by any other name is not as sweet. This insistence on "marriage" as opposed to rights and privileges seems to be about same-sex marriage being blessed by governmental endorsement. Both sides clearly want the government to be in the marriage business; the difference is in how it's defined. It's the principle of the thing. Some argue that as a practical matter there seems to be less interest by same-sex partners in actually being married than in redefining what marriage is. In Iowa, for instance, Wikipedia reports, that only 815 same-sex couples married in the first year after legalization."

The complete editorial is here. Recent polls show support and opposition is running neck and neck.