Count, count, count again

A quick note here:
I had a thought while watching the news tonight that the 2008 election is 99 percent over, with the exception being the Coleman/Franken race here in my home state of Minnesota. It's strange to think of it this way, but it's the last permeable link we have to the spirit of partisan rhetoric, half-truth and exagerration that are the hallmarks of any down and dirty election season. I get the feeling the many people were exhausted by the intensity of the two-year campaign leading up to the election, with those final weeks in front of the TV set being the worst of all. When the election was (mostly) over, the tentacles of partisan rhetoric, as they usually do, relinquished and receeded, and people regained their senses.
Those connected with the Coleman/Franken recount don't have this sort of luxury. For them, it's Nov. 4 times infinity until the electoral limbo is over. It's the last living vestige of the very worst that politics can out in the human spirit. It's the last living link to "terrorist fist jabs" and "Drill, baby, Drill!" It's the last living link to the sort of maddened frenzy John McCain supporters (sometimes to the dismay of the candidate, as witnessed personally by myself when he visited Lakeville) were able to whip themselves into at the thought of the "socialist" and "Muslim" Barack Obama taking the White House.
At this point, I've been so ground down by years of campaigning that I don't even really care who wins the Franken/Coleman race. I just want it to all be over - to let the past be the past, and to let barking dogs lull themselves to sleep for the time being, until the first faint whisps of an upcoming campaign rouses their animalistic passions again.