I have a few political observations sitting on the mental shelf, but my heart says wait until after tonight's primary to share too many of them. Though Wisconsin in itself will not mean much (and I have a friend from my former job who will probably kill me for discounting the importance of her home state), it will be the first chance in over a week to see how actual voters are actually responding to the campaigns (Hawaii, I think, is a given for Obama, and always was).
Myself, I've found the last couple of weeks disheartening, not just because the candidate I support is struggling, but because so little of what passes for news these days is really newsworthy, and because the tension between the two campaigns has become so fraught... can't we all just get along? (I know, I know... too much Miss America, too little anger.)
Mostly I think what we will see tonight is whether the press, finally, has gotten control of the storyline or not - that, after all, has been the fascination and the frustration of this campaign season, the utter refusal of the election (and by extension, us, the voters) to conform to expectations and narrative. The selling of Obama as the New Kennedy; Mike Huckabee as the New Reagan; the Story of How Hillary Clinton Never Caught On... these and other narratives (quick, all aboard the McCain Bandwagon!) have failed to capture the imaginations of many voters, and have served as inaccurate and incomplete metaphors for this election season.
It's been bracing, invigorating even, to see us as a nation refuse to be pigeonholed, dictated to, forced, yet again, to conform to a picture in which many of us don't see ourselves. Sadly, I suspect that magical moment is coming to an end. The election is becoming - later than we would have thought, but earlier than is helpful - into something knowable, explicable, determined. Though we don't like being told what we believe, we do like the reassuring familiarity of the things we know. I love this country because of its tensions and its inherent contradictions. I share them.
And so, though I don't like being all down about it, I suspect the die is cast. I think the sidelining of Huckabee and the mass conformist pressure on the right has made Republican primaries an irrelevance and McCain a done deal (even if he will, ultimately, fail to unite the party and energize conservative voters). I suspect that Obama's inspirational, content-free presentation and the free floating antipathy Hillary Clinton faces for who she is and for being a woman mean it's all over but the shouting (and it will be some colorful, energetic shouting, but still). It's been an election season like no other, but I think more than any candidate, the press has won, beating back the challenge to its dominance by bloggers and free thinkers unwilling to be herded, sheeplike into foreordained conclusions. The concluders have prevailed. The storyline is set.
Of course, I could just be giving in too soon, and we could still be surprised. We'll have to at least wait until tonight.... won't we? :)
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