This is what I’m thinking about the coverage of the upset by Democrat Kathy Hochul over Republican Jane Corwin in a three-way race with Independent Jack Davis for a Congressional seat:

* I woke up this morning expecting to hear all about Hochul’s victory on NBC’s “Today,” the most-watched network morning show here.

It seems much bigger things were going on nationally – like tornados, former Presidential candidate John Edwards possibly being indicted, President Obama and his wife in England and an airline mess in Europe caused by a volcano.

Hochul got about 10 seconds read by Ann Curry as some video of her victory speech ran in the background.

I guess we’ll have to head to cable tonight or wait until the Sunday morning talk shows to hear what the national pundits – some of whom in Corwin’s words “don’t even live here” – have to say about the upset and its national implications.

Just when Corwin was winning me over at the start of her classy concession speech Tuesday, she had to take the shot at the pundits and channel Sarah Palin by talking about the impact of “gotcha politics” on her losing campaign.

That’s when I turned off Corwin’s speech to go back to the final minutes of Miami’s win over Chicago in Eastern Conference finals of the NBA playoffs so I’m not sure if she ever took responsibility for a campaign that often insulted the intelligence of voters.

* I had to laugh at 10:30 p.m. during Channel 2’s news on WNYO-TV when anchor Scott Levin said the station had to leave during Hochul’s victory speech.
What was so important?

A “Family Guy” rerun was about to start.

Channel 4’s 10 p.m. news on WNLO-TV stayed on until 10:36 p.m., when it was time for TMZ on its sister channel.

*Three cheers for YNN, Time Warner’s 24 hour news channel, which was all over the Hochul-Corwin race while the network affiliates were primarily running reality show finales.

YNN provided results and interviews more than an hour before the local news channels and gave an early indication that Hochul was pulling an upset.

With all the money that Channel 2, Channel 4 and Channel 7 got from political ads, you might have thought they would have at least carried constant crawls rather than force interested political viewers to go to the Buffalo News website and TV websites for results.

* Channel 4’s Rich Newberg and Channel 2’s Michael Wooten both learned while they were on the air shortly after 10 p.m. that the Associated Press had declared Hochul the winner.

Channel 2’s Aaron Saykin channeled former Channel 4 analyst Joe Crangle to show results throughout the district that made AP’s call understandable.

However, anchor Maryalice Demler pulled a Yogi Berra and advised viewers that it isn’t over until it’s over.

“Any prediction by AP may be a little premature,” advised Demler. “We still got those absentees (ballots) to count.”

Ten minutes later, Corwin conceded.

* Channel 2’s Marissa Bailey needs a math lesson in probability. She noted that Davis had 8 percent of the vote at one point, which added to Corwin’s 42 percent at the time would have given the Republican the victory over Hochul’s 48 percent at the time.

Her presumption was that all of Davis votes would have gone to Corwin, which seems highly unlikely considering how many Republicans crossed over party lines in this race.

*Finally, the Analyst of the Night Award goes to Republican Carl Calabrese, who gently said on Channel 2 that Corwin lost the race more than Hochul won it. He said Corwin didn’t speak to the right issues, didn’t address them properly and never energized her base. He also said the Davis camera incident with her chief assembly aide didn’t help.

And Calabrese isn’t a national pundit who doesn’t live here.

pergament@msn.com

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