Last Chapter of a Storybook Campaign; "a fine line between engrossed and obsessed"

WP: Last Chapter of a Storybook Campaign
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, October 24, 2008; Page A19

In a week and a half, it'll be over. What will we do to fill the void in our lives?

Opinion surveys, voter registration totals and cable television ratings indicate that Americans have been engrossed by the marathon presidential campaign. That's no surprise, given the first-in-history nature of the candidacies, the host of crucial problems we face and the sense that the outcome may determine the course -- and the prospects -- of our nation for many years to come.

But there's a fine line between being engrossed and being obsessed, and many of us have crossed it....

***

It feels as if we've been making our way through some great epic novel, by Tolstoy, perhaps, or Thomas Pynchon -- a book peopled by indelible characters who act against the backdrop of sweeping events. Just think back to where we started. On New Year's Day, the conventional wisdom was that the general election would be an Empire State contest between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. So much for the conventionally wise. The Iowa caucuses were the equivalent of the famous opening line of "Gravity's Rainbow," Pynchon's masterpiece: "A screaming comes across the sky."

In the course of the long narrative, some characters emerged from nowhere -- Joe the Plumber, for example -- had a dramatic impact, and then disappeared -- Jeremiah Wright, for example. Others went away but returned unexpectedly, such as Giuliani, who came back to lead Republican convention delegates in the unforgettable chant "Drill, baby, drill." Or John Edwards, who dropped out of the race but later resurfaced at a Beverly Hills hotel, hiding from National Enquirer reporters chasing a tip that he was visiting his mistress.

As for plot twists, I can think of few in literature that compare with the sudden emergence of Sarah Palin. If you look closely at the video clip of her appearance on "Saturday Night Live," when she's in the hallway talking to Alec Baldwin and SNL honcho Lorne Michaels, a man dressed like Abraham Lincoln is in the background with what appears to be a llama. That's the kind of year it's been.

We're now at a bittersweet point that's analogous to reaching the middle of the final chapter....

We'll have something to savor, though. After Election Day has come and gone, we -- at least those of us who bother to vote -- will know that the time we spent obsessing about the campaign was worth it. That's because we'll be the ones who decided how the story ended.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302883.html?nav%3Dmost_emailed&sub=AR

Bah!

And it's not a novel, or even a story. It''s people trying to take back control of their lives. It's real, and we all ought to care about it. This is only the beginning. It will take generations to make a difference. It's been 40 years, two generations, since the voting rights and civil rights acts were passed, and we are just now seeing the fruit of that effort.

People fought and died for this.

There are many, many investigations to conduct under an Attorney General who'll enforce subpoenas. Then, I'll be obsessed.