The front page

Since we began here at SemiObama, we have spent a lot of time discussing the covers of newspapers and magazines, despite the fact that newspapers and magazines are losing their grip on American journalism.

As much as we love blogs and watch television, there is still something different about newspapers and magazines that make them crucial when an historical moment happens. We know this, and sales of The New York Times and Washington Post, days after the Obama election, or the cumulative effect of something like this, show how strong an effect the tangible has on us. 

In the case of a long election that ended in history, the need for the tangible may be overwhelming. Television news was thrilling, reading the blogs surprisingly less so, but reading the newspapers and the commemorative magazines, though decried as cynical by some observers, gives people a sense that something real has happened.

--J.S.

Tired

As Sean Quinn over at FiveThirtyEight acknowledges, we're all tired. While he and his photographer drove all over the country making electoral reports, all we did was knock on a few doors and stand like a statue at a polling place. But it's not the physical nature of the election that has us all tuckered out, though I am suffering from a decided lack of sleep.

It's the end of a long election season, and an end that was dramatic in its results and symbolism but almost completely without drama in its progression during the evening, especially after the first few battlegrounds were called for Obama. Last night as I was scanning election results on my office computer and checking out the campus broadcast of CNN, I was struck by how little happened after Pennsylvania and Ohio were called. So little in fact, that I actually got some work done while waiting. At ten, I looked more closely at the Florida and Virginia numbers and realized that with urban areas in Virginia reporting a little more slowly than rural areas and Obama building a larger lead in Florida, that the networks seemed to be deliberately slow feeding us results.

I called Miles in Virginia and suggested as much, and that a call of the election would happen at 11. It did.

Those I talked to today were unanimous in their recognition of the evening as historic and the quality of both McCain's concession and Obama's acceptance. But they were also surprised how quickly and easily the election seemed to go during the night itself.

We had rewritten our expectations of what elections were supposed to be--we saw them as inherent lingering dramas, a contention boosted by the length of our this campaign but especially our experiences in 2000 and 2004.  In other words, we made the signified of the election signifier as a stable instability instead of its more likely interpretation of unpredictable. Or in English, we thought the drama of election night would match the drama of the last year. It didn't.

--J.S.

Real Semiotics

One half of the semi-Obamians made his way to a polling place today in New Hampshire, where he held election signs for the Democrats. At this polling place, he was one of 11 Democrats holding signs compared to six Republicans. 

Some observations:

*The signs themselves were fairly low tech--just graphic designed and stapled to a wood stick. Actually, some were taped--they didn't hold up as well. I cut myself a bit on a staple, and the foldout sign I had for Paul Hodes, the Democratic candidate for Congressman I had to balance on my foot. 

    There does not seem to a particularly high tech way to do the signage. It was somewhat comforting to think that in an age of high tech voting targeting, sign holding still came down to a basic technique that's probably decades if not centuries old.

   In a sense the act of voting and the sign holding are part of the same low-tech dynamic that comes down to choosing and helping others choose.

*Both the other Obama volunteer and I had to call into the headquarters for Obama signs--both of us were holding up signs for candidates who we had not heard of. I guess that's to be expected if you work outside of your voting area.

*The idea of standing and holding signs is rather strange but required because signs, at least in New Hampshire, cannot be left unattended. The election official took unattended signs and put them near the dumpster, causing one holder to ask if anyone had stolen the signs after she had come back from a break.

*There were sign stories. People talked about the cold and rainy conditions in which they had held signs for their candidates. One said, she had been holding signs for "twenty years." I said I had been holding signs "for an hour."

*I was cold. I didn't know my job when I left for the campaign today, so I dressed like a college professor with a corduroy blazer. Though it got warmer later, my hands and feet were numb. The New Hampshire natives were much better dressed.

*I felt a mix between human and sign; one of the Republican sign holders thanked people for voting. The only talking I did was to other volunteers. But I felt my function was more as a sign than a human. And I liked "visibility" because I could help without talking to more strangers; I didn't mine being read....

--J.S.

Election fatigue

Everybody I know is saying, "I can't wait for it to be over," suggesting an existential weariness that goes beyond simple tiredness.  I know I feel that way. So let's read this fear as a text.

Is it fatigue or memory? A Daily Kos diary recalls a post from 2004 in which he declared "We're already winning in Florida," linking to this image. I predicted a Kerry win myself. So some of this has to do with predictions gone wrong, not unlike my friend Miles's consistent memory about the Bartman Cubs, a series where he called me in the offending game and talked about pitching lineups between his Cubs and my Yankees. The World Series champions that year were the Marlins.

Is it fatigue or (a hundred different kinds of) fear? We have all been reading about the Bradley effect, but we want to believe in our country's ability to choose an African American president. Many of us are afraid that we won't take our first serious chance to do so. We remember Florida in 2000, and we read stories like this, which talk about election machine troubles, or this, which talks about endless waiting, or this, which talks about GOP efforts to disenfranchise poor voters, or this, where official looking signs appear telling Democrats to vote on November 5 (not 4). So we're also afraid Democrats will somehow be cheated out of a deserved victory.

Is it fatigue or excitement? Has the past month been the equivalent of an extended Christmas Eve or the week or two before a big sporting event when our team is playing? Are we so excited that we cannot wait until Election Day? 

Is it fatigue or the promise of relief? We might be anticipating the Wednesday after the election just as we might be a little extra tired the week before a vacation.

Is it fatigue? Some of us have added the equivalent of a part-time job either working for the campaign or in my case reading about it to our already over-scheduled lives. So we really might be tired for all the reasons above and then some. 

--J.S.