The Daily Show won’t have live coverage of the Obama inauguration ceremony as that’s taking place during the day (you can keep up to date on that though on the Indecision 2008 blog), but it will have a live roundup of the day’s events at 11pm.

So if you live in the US, tune into Comedy Central on the 20th January at 11pm to watch live. If you’re in the UK, More 4 will air this episode on Wednesday at 8.30pm.

There will be live blogging on the Indecision 2008 blog throughout the show and also live blogging throughout the day of the inauguration ceremony.

Indecision 2008 blog – “The Daily Show LIVE on Inauguration Day”
Indecision 2008 blog – “Indecision’s Inauguration Day Coverage”

The Associated Press reports “The Republican presidential candidate is set to join “Tonight” host Jay Leno on Tuesday in honor of Veteran’s Day, the network announced. McCain is a former Naval officer and prisoner of war in Vietnam”.

The Associated Press – “McCain set for Veteran’s Day visit to `Tonight’”

The Monday night show had impressions by Amy Poehler (as Hillary Clinton), Fred Armisen (as Barack Obama) and Darrell Hammond (as John McCain). The real Barack Obama, John McCain and Sarah Palin were also on the show introducing classic SNL clips, etc.

JournalNow.com asks “what will Saturday Night Live do without the 2008 presidential election to mock?”. Good question.

Hulu.com – Clips from the SNL Presidential Bash 2008 (the videos work in the UK)
Journal Now – “Election’s end may collapse SNL’s…readiness for prime time”
eNews 2.0 – “Obama Won; and So Did NBC with “SNL””

As More 4 air The Daily Show With Jon Stewart in the UK and FX UK air The Colbert Report in the UK, this special “Indecision 2008: America’s Choice” programme will be shown on both channels. It will be on More 4 at 8.45pm tonight and on FX UK at 10pm tonight. The show is about 1 hour long.

If you can’t wait until tonight, the official election blog for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (Indecision2008.com) has uploaded various clips from the special 4th November show.

Jon Stewart got the chance to announce Barack Obama was the next US President live as it happened. The Associated Press reports “Stewart became the first comedian to announce presidential election results on live national television. Sensing the end was imminent, the broadcast delayed its signoff for a moment, as offstage producers gave the closing cue while hovering over TV monitors showing. When they said the election had been called, the comedians effectively became newsmen”. Jon Stewart looked close to tears as he announced “at 11 o’clock at night – Eastern Standard Time – the president of the United States is Barack Obama”.

Indecision2008.com – Videos
The Associated Press – “Stewart, Colbert parody election in real-time”

Senator Obama took several key states which sealed his victory in the US Election. BBC News reports “Mr Obama captured the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, before breaking through the winning threshold of 270 electoral college votes at 0400 GMT, when projections showed he had also taken California and a slew of other states… Then came the news that he had also seized Florida, Virginia and Colorado”.

Congratulations President Obama.

BBC News – “Obama wins historic US election”
BBC News – “Brown hails ‘inspirational’ Obama”
BBC News – “Obama’s victory speech in full” (Video clip)
BBC News – “US crowds celebrate Obama win” (Video clip)
BBC News – “Victory called for Obama” (Video clip)
BBC News – “McCain: ‘We must work together’” (Video clip)
YouTube – “Signs of Hope & Change: Election Night”

The day has come – after nearly two years of campaigning today is US Election Day 2008. Everyone in the US will be going to the polls today to register their votes for the candidate to become the next President of the United States.

Barack Obama and John McCain have made numerous appearances on various US talk shows throughout their campaign. John McCain has also – infamously – dropped out of an appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman before coming back to apologise at a later date. Letterman has made several jokes about McCain (“He’s so old…”) throughout the campaign.

Barack Obama’s appearance on the Late Show back in January of this year had him reading the Top Ten list and he made a further appearance on the show a few months later for another Top Ten reading.

Barack Obama has also made appearances on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, and John McCain has stopped by the Late Show on several occassions including one time to do his own monologue at the start of the show. John McCain’s first election-related appearance on the Late Show though was – of course – when he announced exclusively on the show that he was running for US President. John McCain’s appearance on Saturday Night Live (with Tina Fey doing her impression of Sarah Palin) aired last weekend.

The results of the US Presidency will be known by the early hours of tomorrow morning (UK time). If you’d like to watch the news coverage (and Comedy Central for a funny slant on the election) as it happens on the US & UK networks, I have put some links below that you will find useful. CBS and NBC election coverage runs right through the night in America (which will be the early hours of Wednesday morning if you’re watching in the UK). There will also be coverage of the US election on BBC1 and the BBC News Channel throughout the night tonight if you live in the UK.

CNN – Election Webcast – Watch Live
CBS News – Katie Couric’s Election Webcast – Watch Live
MSNBC – Election Webcast – Watch Live
ABC News – Election Webcast – Watch Live
BBC News Channel (UK only) – Election Webcast – Watch Live
Sky News (UK only) – Election Webcast – Watch Live
CBS live streaming 24 hours a day
NBC live streaming 24 hours a day
Comedy Central live streaming for the comedic slant on the election
BBC News – US Elections 2008 section
BBC News – US Election polltracker
BBC News – “Obama’s final stand in Virginia” (Video clip)
BBC News – “McCain’s seven state marathon” (Video clip)

TV Guide’s review of the episode says “They wasted no time putting McCain to use, as he was joined by Tina as Palin (!) to make their last-minute plea to voters while hawking products on QVC. Apparently the campaign, as Tina points out, spent a little too much money on Palin’s clothes and couldn’t afford to match Sen. Obama’s three-network infomercial”.

Actor Ben Affleck was the guest host on the show and American Idol star David Cook performed.

There is a two hour special show tonight (3rd November) on the eve before the US Election. The two hour special is called the SNL Presidential Bash 2008 and special guests will make appearances on the show. The two hour special will air at 9/8c on Monday 3rd November on NBC.

TV Guide – “SNL Episode Recap: Ben Affleck Hosts, David Cook Performs”
NBC.com – Saturday Night Live – “McCain QVC Open” (Video clip)