Charlie - ahem, Charles - Gibson is back with his e-night deskkick George Stephanopoulos, and he's as cool as a cucumber. He's gliding through this, and seems to really be in his element. Shuffling through a stack of ABC News index cards, he goes through the key Senate, House and governor elections after again telling viewers that he'll be at what the network's calling ABC News election headquarters all night.
Surrounded by computers and flat screens, Gibson points to a "tote board" he says he'll be using during the night to track the switched seats. A sidelined Stephanopoulos is playing stat-man, giving updates on exit polls and emphatically driving home tidbits of commentary. But Gibson's clearly center stage here, and if he has stage fright, he's not showing it. In fact, he's even cracked a couple of jokes saying he was "amused" that we'll have a "Whitehouse in the Senate" after Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse took his state's Senate seat and characterizing Hillary Clinton's reelection as having "all the surprise of a Doris Day movie."
Gibson chatted it up with the View girls last week about the network's election coverage, telling Babs and co. that he was something of a political junkie, and it shows. He clearly knows his stuff and is confident enough about that fact to deliver the news calmly - he's using amazing restraint with the digital screen highlighter he's got by his side. ABC keeps returning to the covering with a promo saying something about how all throughout today viewers voted on the issues that mattered to them - once was enough.
By Anne Becker
