We thought it was big news this weekend when Barack Obama threw his hat into the ring. But the hungriest candidate to announce is Carson Daly.
Daly wants Conan O'Brien's NBC timeslot when (and if) Conan takes over The Tonight Show in a couple of years. The only catch is that when NBC announced that Conan would replace Jay Leno in 2009, there was no mention of who'd fill Conan's 12:30 am Late Show. One person who noticed the omission is the guy who's been stranded in NBC's 1:30 am slot. So now he's campaigning for it.
The former MTV star, Tara Reid boyfriend, Earl Hickey inspiration and would-be "Dick Clark of The Internet," is marking his fifth year hosting the little-seen, middle-of-the-night Last Call with Carson Daly and admits that he hasn't even spoken to NBC brass about the gig.
And they sure haven't mentioned it.
"The only thing I can do is say to the network, 'We want to be in the position where we are considered a 12:30 replacement when that happens,'" he says, even though historically, such early, naked pleading doesn't work out so well (Oh, yeah-- Brian Williams), especially for a guy who says: "I'm lucky I'm on the air."
Meanwhile, Last Call producers have been pumping more comedy into the talk show. And Daly has always worked well with the suits. In fact, he's working with NBC on a TV version of his user-generated Internet site called It's Your Show.