"Finally, it's over."
We'd heard it many times before--weeks, months even. We'd been fooled. And so, when the men and women on the teevee began telling us that it was over this time, no really, we were naturally skeptical. When there is so very much at stake - reputations, jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars, legacies, the 50's future, James Carville's relevance - you tend to believe it never will end. We'd grown accustomed to a kind of comfortable paralysis. The Lady Who Would Be Queen and The Phenom continued to crisscross the nation, visiting whatever town halls and college arenas would have them, playing out the string on a contest that had ended quite a while ago. Delegate counts kept inching upward toward some magical number without any appreciable change in the margin. He kept winning. Or was it her that kept winning? Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, now eighteen million votes per guy or gal. But none of them altered the math that had existed since March. There were debates and controversies and rules committee meetings and so on.
Where once we watched enthralled we now stared with glaze.
And then he hit that fabulous bullseye. It had to be over. But wait for it--no. Not for a few more days. They had spoken. All the hardworking states, in expatriate communities worldwide, back in the territories, and as superdelegates, had said O. And yet it wasn't over. Then the talk turned from what had been for a dozen weeks - "Is there any way this is less over than we think?"--to exhaustion and befuddlement--"Is there any chance this is an enormous practical joke?"
And then . . . this weekend . . . it ended with a thud. Even the disappointed pundits were thrilled to say: O V E R. To the rooftops! Sound the shofars! IT. IS. FINAL!
Of course it's not. We're only halfway. But, for optimists who can blithely say in blogs "Maybe this election isn't the great one," there is one more terrific line to share with readers: We're ACTUALLY halfway there!!
The primary process took such a long time we now (astonishingly) have a truncated general election period. Imagine that. Only three months until the conventions!! Only five months till November!! We've whittled our way down from three candidates . . . to two!
So what's over again? What ended? We chose a Democratic nominee for president. And we already have the Republican dude smiling off to the sidelines. And most of us already pretty much know whom we support--if there are undecided dudes out there they are merely posturing. So we enter a period of media coverage designed to saturate the landscape with stories we already know or for which we have little use. They will, by and large, reinforce our allegiances. A premium will be placed on sound bites and fabricate narratives at the expense of policy debate. The target will not be the tiny band of undecideds in swing states that decide this thing. (I say, give them a dance to swing in.)
Yes, electorates, that target is everyone. Or at the very least we'll be the collateral damage since we are all in it. Some of us think we chose to be involved. But the process chose us. Voters and non-voters, Republicans and Democrats and Independents, readers of blogs and consumers of mainstream press.... none of us can escape the maw of the big, honking, grinding machine. Remember the start? Two lowly years ago, when the first trickles of "Will he run?" "How about her?" formed rivulets at our feet. We'll be in it as rumors fly, speeches parsed and media figures analyzed for five endless and difficult months, while fake-as-all-get-out controversies swirl about, debates boil down to spun headlines, and we have v-water-cooler moments about one of them having maybe done something stupid. Special interest groups suffuse Ohio and Missouri airwaves with 30-second provocations. The victimless crimes of bad ads begin to saturate our very beings.
Come November someone will win (unless we get a "Recount" sequel here). There will be an inauguration in January (like in 2004, when about half the country sank into a United States-a-coma). But not long after, before it seems possible, there will be a moment. You'll be folding laundry. Those talking heads on your CNN.com will be at a low hum. You'll slap yourself because you thought you heard something.
It can't be.
Could this happen to us now?
I mean--already?
". . . announced that he was forming an exploratory committee . . ."