I’m in the mood for a “realigning election”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realigning_election, aren’t you? They’re almost as rare as “Halley’s Comet”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet, so we should be on the lookout for one in the event it comes by. We haven’t had one since 1932, you know.
This led to an obvious thought. In 2008 _The New Yorker_ has covered the election very closely; there have been innumerable articles touching on “Barack Obama”:http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/13/081013taco_talk_editors, “John McCain”:http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/05/26/080526taco_talk_toobin, “Sarah Palin”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_gourevitch, “Joe Biden”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_lizza, and “Hillary Clinton”:http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/06/23/080623taco_talk_hertzberg. There have been covers, blog entries, podcasts, and cartoons.
(And today the magazine’s website is offering a massive amount of coverage, including stuff from “James Surowiecki”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/jamessurowiecki/2008/11/the-permanent-c.html, “Hendrik Hertzberg”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/11/defamation.html, “Lizzie Widdicombe”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/2008/11/on-the-bus.html, and a very timely Election Day edition of “Book Bench” dedicated to the act of “reading”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2008/11/other-stories.html while waiting to vote. Really, they’re “flooding the zone”:http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?keyword=election%20day%202008&sort=publishDateSort%20desc,%20score%20desc&queryType=nonparsed.)
Nobody could fairly complain that _The New Yorker_ has stinted on election coverage this year.
So let’s look at the last realigning election! What did _The New Yorker_ do then? Surely not a cover, that wasn’t the way they did things. That’s fine. But a tart, expectant entry in the Talk of the Town? Perhaps a cartoon expressing relief? That seems certain.
Not if you judge by the issues around Election Day, it isn’t. Election Day in 1932 fell on “November 8”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1932. _The New Yorker_ had issues dated November 5 and 12.
The only sign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor in either of those issues appears to be on a single page dedicated to a satirical newspaper called “The Blotz” and written by Frank Sullivan—so saith the Search Archive.
“The Blotz” is difficult to summarize; it looks pretty funny, actually, but most of the humor is simply lost on us. There’s a box on the top that has “OUR PLATFORM: Deutschland Über Alles” in it; there’s an item making fun of the many Roosevelts all over the country who will presumably be clogging the ballot box for FDR. There’s a little pictorial representation of “Governor Roosevelt” in which he resembles the Cryptkeeper from _Tales from the Crypt_.
Ah, humor. It reminds me of when I yank out an issue of _Punch_ to peruse, and similarly fail to get any of the jokes.
In any case, it’s safe to say that the 2008 version of _TNY_ outstrips its 1932 counterpart. So much for realignment; times change. Hurrah!