Election Night: Win, Place, Plenty of Show : Television: Analysts and anchors jockey for position in exciting local and national coverage of political races highlighted by close finishes at the wire.

“Things are just getting interesting,” Jerry Dunphy said at 12:30 a.m.

“As you can see, we’re closing the gap,” Dianne Feinstein said at 12:50 a.m.

“This is the kind of night that makes politics fun,” Bill Press said at 1 a.m.

“Pete Wilson is the winner,” KCBS Channel 2 said at 1:40 a.m.

“I’m going to bed,” I told myself at 1:45 a.m.

But who could sleep at a time like this? It was the kind of night that made politics fun.

In all likelihood, you didn’t watch if you didn’t vote. Chances are that you didn’t watch much even if you did vote.

Then what you missed Tuesday--from early in the evening to 2:20 a.m. Wednesday, when Dunphy’s KCAL Channel 9 became the last Los Angeles station to end its election-night coverage--was the best, most exciting show on television.

Almost like old times.

Thanks to the Wilson-Feinstein gubernatorial cliffhanger, the evening was an all-night poker game, a throwback to a less sophisticated age when Americans could enjoy a night of election coverage without having their suspense aborted by exit polls and quick-draw projections. In those days, just like Tuesday, the trickling in of returns became exquisitely tantalizing foreplay, leading to a climactic Big Announcement.

Oh, there were exit polls and projections galore throughout the evening, all right, with the networks saving money by collaborating on a single polling operation whose data was shared with their affiliates. Even as results from other races flashed on the screen, however, the hair-triggers were slowed by the extreme closeness of several contests, including the centerpiece Wilson-Feinstein race, whose outcome was not projected until early the next morning.

And even then, confusion hit the fan.

There was KNBC Channel 4’s Bill Lagattuta at Feinstein headquarters, seeking the response of one of her aides, Duane Garrett, to Channel 4’s projection of Wilson’s victory. But Garrett emphatically told a perplexed Lagattuta that CBS (meaning KCBS, apparently) had called Feinstein the winner.

Actually, KCBS had called Wilson the winner.

Cut to KCAL, which apparently had been monitoring Channel 4. KCAL analysts Press and Bay Buchanan, after making their own call for Wilson, then proceeded to perpetuate Garrett’s misinformation by wondering how in the world KCBS could have projected a Feinstein victory.

Which it hadn’t.

It was a bizarre way to cap a night in which local stations had to shift gears abruptly to cover the fiery inferno at Universal Studios, affirming that covering disasters is, arguably, what local TV does best.

The earliest, chopper-view live pictures of the blaze, on Channel 4, Channel 9, KABC Channel 7 and KTTV Channel 11, were spectacular, making an emotional U-turn in an evening otherwise dominated by election and entertainment programming. KCBS was the slowpoke: Although it provided some early ground-level coverage, Channel 2 didn’t have live overhead pictures until nearly 9 p.m., trailing some of its competition by as much as 45 minutes.

This was a night for anchors.

On most other occasions, showing up and reading a TelePrompTer is about all that’s required of them. But Tuesday was an exception, not only because of the election coverage, but also because of the need to react quickly to the Universal fire.

Concerning Universal, Channel 7’s Paul Moyer and Ann Martin and Channel 4’s Kelly Lange get good marks for being especially cool and collected under pressure while handling fire inserts.

Much earlier, when election returns were beginning to come in from across the nation, it was Dan Rather who was uniquely arresting, not only because CBS’ coverage seemed especially clear and crisp, but also because of Rather himself.

In his shirt sleeves and suspenders, lacking only a green eyeshade to complete the picture of a small-town editor, Rather sounded like a cross between John Wayne and Farmer Dan. Some of Tuesday night’s election Danisms:

“He’s a comer, now he’s a goner.”

“Hey Mabel, come in from the kitchen.”

“No, sir, he wins re-election.”

“Herd ‘em up, move ‘em out.”

“Hey, hello, what’s this?”

“He’s long gone.”

“He’s hanging right tight on the taillights.”

“You could put a cigarette paper between the two of them.”

“Here’s one. Well, howdy.”

“There’s no way, Jose, or anybody else.”

And Rather to Connie Chung, after acknowledging he had misspoken about an election return: “See if you can pull my made-a-mistake chestnuts outta the fire here.”

No one had to rescue Channel 4’s Jess Marlow and Linda Douglass, who were far and away the smoothest and most election-literate local anchors on the air Tueday night. Douglass, the station’s political reporter, in particular was that rare commodity, an intelligent anchor-analyst. And Channel 4’s “election ticker”--perpetual election returns running across the bottom of the picture--turned out to be a fine innovation as well.

If Marlow and Douglass were the best, the worst of the night’s anchors resided on Channel 11, which apparently was trying to hide Patti Davis Suarez’s ad-libbing deficiencies by having her front election coverage--as if she were stuffed and mounted only for display--without actually taking part.

Well, she did take part occasionally. But her stilted live interviews--seemingly done from scripted questions a la “Broadcast News”--were a disaster. And curiously, when it came to serious anchoring, that chore fell to the able Dave Bryan in Washington for election coverage and to equally able Chris Harris for the fire story.

This was an evening where pundits proliferated, with posturing George Putnam and Joe Cerell offering low burlesque on Channel 11, for example, in contrast to the general intelligence of Stu Spencer and Susan Estrich on Channel 2. The latter’s conversational analysis, in conjunction with Channel 2’s Terry Anzur, became more and more seductive as the evening wore on.

The most rewarding of the political chatterers, however, were Buchanan and Press (who co-hosts a radio show on KABC-AM radio) on Channel 9. They made you feel as if you were joining them around a kitchen table as they hashed over the election into the wee hours.

The most scholarly analysis anywhere, however, came from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday morning’s “Today” show. In a year when the electorate was depicted as anxious to “throw the bums out of office,” why did so many incumbents win? Because, replied Mitchell, “the bums who were running against the bums weren’t as good as the bums who were in there.”

Hey Mabel, come in from the kitchen.