What will we blog about next week: II

Hollywood Reporter picks up the thread of what we'll talk about after the elections are over:

Bill O'Reilly, Matt Drudge, Limbaugh and other conservative stars rose to power during the eight years of the Clinton administration. Over the past eight years of Republican rule, such entertainers as Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Al Franken were able to make the jump to the big time on the backs of White House blunders.

That means if Obama converts his lead in the polls to a victory, the next four years could bring these stars back to earth and vault others into the stratosphere.

"The people who have the most trouble will be people like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert," one network late-night producer said. "It's very hard to rail against the machine when you helped support the machine. They're going to have to find a different dynamic."

It's not just traditional television comedy either.

Hybrid personality Michael Moore enjoyed under Bush his two biggest boxoffice successes in "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko," feeding off resentment for Bush's foreign policy and health-care plan. Moore is prepping a sequel to "Fahrenheit" that Paramount Vantage and Overture are co-producing. But rival studio execs are questioning the movie's commercial prospects if Obama wins the White House and the country puts the Bush years behind it.

Cable news, meanwhile, is increasingly polarized, and the election will only widen the gulf. Fox News' most successful shows -- led by O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor" and Hannity's "Hannity & Colmes" -- are also two of its more conservative shows (though Colmes provides a counterbalance), while MSNBC has taken a sharp turn to the left with Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and, to a lesser extent, Chris Matthews.

An election that lifts either the left or right to power will provide a boost to the network imbued with the ideology of the other side. Given Obama's lead at the polls, an MSNBC comeback -- Olbermann's ratings continue to be strong and Maddow's upstart show is an unlikely second-place challenger to CNN's Larry King -- could stall if the Illinois senator ascends to the Oval Office.

And such effects wouldn't be limited to MSNBC: Cable ratings in general could sag.

"A lot of people are going to suffer from withdrawal after the election," said Hunter, only half-joking. "What are people going to talk about after there's no more campaigning?"