That has a nice ring to it, ey? That’s the working title for tonight’s big election results live-chat. We are taking the election-night show online at blogs.vocalo.org. The page will turnover to a chat-room sometime this afternoon. We aren’t going to lie: Steve and I are big fans of the horse-race called election season. We are also big fans of the election results programming on local stations. The cutaways, the live banter, the rush that comes with talking to candidates and politicians once they’ve won or lost…it’s sublime. I’ve been in many situations on election night where my job was to get the phone (which had the show on the other line) in the face of a candidate. “Just talk! WBEZ wants to talk to you!” Then they would start chatting while all the other reporters and camera crews would stand by and wait impatiently.

Photo by CheryleD (from our Flickr pool)

That style of election night jockeying has somewhat disappeared thanks to crafty campaign managers and more media control. But now we have new tools on the media side to create lively, entertaining conversations, threads and commentary on the election storylines and drama unfolding in front of us. We want tonight’s chat room to be a smoke-filled back room at a Bridgeport pub. We want it to conjure up the spirits of Mike Royko and Bill Gleason (yeah, he was sports but so what?). We want this chat-room to be a Chicago chat room.

That being said, it will be a challenge. It will reside on blogs.vocalo.org’s main page. That’s the easy part. The hard part? We’ve booked a ton of people and we have calls out to every candidate. It’s going to feel live, that’s for sure. But it’s easier to apologize and get back on the horse when something goes wrong or off-the-beaten path.

Here’s a line-up of who we have confirmed. Apologies to anyone who should be on this list. It’s a little out of control. We are breaking it up into 3 one-hour ensembles. I’m not including candidates or reporter check-ins, because I can’t predict a time when that will happen.

7pm: Moderated by Steve Edwards and Justin Kaufmann

Robert Feder (media blogger, Vocalo.org)
Mark Bazer (columnist, Redeye)
Rhymefest (hip-hop sensation)
Marcus Gilmer (editor, Chicagoist)
Lynn Sweet (Sweet blog, Chicago Sun-Times)
Geoff Dougherty (editor, Chicago Current)
Andrew Huff (editor, Gapers Block)
Brian Babylon (host, Vocalo.org)
Scott Waguespack (alderman 32nd Ward)
Kevin Robinson (political writer, Chicagoist)
Ernest Wilkins (editor, Metromix)
Ken Barnard (comic, Chicago)
Blagica Bottigliero (founder, Gals Guide)

8pm: Moderated by Steve Edwards and Justin Kaufmann

Micah Maidenberg (editor, Chicago Journal)
Scott Smith (editor, Playboy.com)
Kitty Kurth (political consultant)
Marj Halperin (political analyst)
Ben Goldberger (new media editor, Chicago News Cooperative)
Dave Lundy (political consultant)
Ethan Michaeli (editor, Residents’ Journal)
Jenni Spinner (twitter personality)
Thom Clark (director, Community Media Workshop)
Dan O’Neil (internet consultant)

9pm: Moderated by Steve Edwards and Justin Kaufmann

Peter Sagal (host, NPR)
Eric Zorn (columnist/blogger, Chicago Tribune)
Neil Steinberg (columnist, Chicago Sun-Times)
Dan Sinker (former editor, Punk Planet; journalism professor)
Ramsin Canon (political editor, Gapers Block)
Chris Robling (political analyst)
Don Hall (blogger, theater director)
Josh Kalven (editor, Progressive Illinois)
Veronica Arreola (twitter personality)
Ben Calhoun (former political reporter, WBEZ)
Jim Bennett (comedian, GayCo)

Guests:
Ed Yohnka – ACLU spokesman