InTheCapital

By Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel

Whether you watched or not, you probably woke up to hear that Mitt Romney eeked out a victory in Iowa by the skin of his teeth, which translates roughly into eight votes. 

EIGHT VOTES. This is not a real outcome. Certainly not the outcome of a national PRESIDENTIAL primary state. This was the outcome of a 7th grade student council election. I weep for this nation.

BUT it wasn’t all lame, boring punditry. If you were lucky enough to tough it out with us strange, non-showering political freaks (think button-down shirt-clad meth addicts) you were in for a real treat from the 376 people who happened to cram on-set at CNN’s ‘Election Center’. 

[Thanks to Matt Cherette from BuzzFeed for grabbing some of these great videos and posting them to the internets]

Best Moment(s) of the Evening - CNN AFTER DARK: At about 1:30am with coffee running low, delirium set in on CNN. Normally composed men and women became slaphappy and bumbled around the set aimlessly, unable to use their touch screens and hologram projectors.  Anderson Cooper appropriately asks, “Have we all just given up?”. 

If only you knew Anderson…it was just the beginning.

And then…deep into the 2am hour, the #iacaucus tweets began to slow. We personally considered going to bed between 2 and 4 times, but CNN’s crafty method of lying to it’s viewers, kept me awake and tuned in:

…So glad I did. Because THIS happened: Edith and Carolyn, officials from the ‘last county’ to report results got on the phone with Wolf Blitzer and John King…

At that point things devolved into complete and total madness. I began ingesting psychotropic drugs just to keep up. It was no use.

Then this happened:  

With the universe quickly collapsing on itself, I decided the best course of action had to be to head to sleep…but CNN was STILL on. Must. Soldier. On.

Again, it was worth it since this happened. And the Eurythmics began to play. Cannot make this up.

And lastly, Anderson Cooper with the porn grooves.

Satisfied and unsure of my consciousness, I went to bed…I think. Or maybe I didn’t…IS THIS INCEPTION?!!