It’s now nearly 7 am in Austria. I’ve been up all night. And what a night.
I have supported Barack Obama for president ever since he announced his candidacy, in early 2007. There were times when I saw the rationale for this or that other candidate, but my preference was always Obama, never had a doubt.
On November 7, 2005, I attended a “taping”:http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=129775&title=barack-obama of _The Daily Show,_ and the guest was the new junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. I was really stoked to see him. I went with some Austrian friends, who now insist that I was gushing all about Obama even then, telling them to “watch this guy… he could really go places,” and all that. I don’t remember being so effusive, but apparently I was.
But, as you will see if you watch the video, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist interfered with my one chance to see a future president up close by calling an emergency vote that would keep Obama in Washington, D.C., for the day. He appeared via live video hookup, and that was neat too, but … well, I wish I had seen him for real. Maybe I will someday.
At that time I was very intrigued by Obama but still had no real reason to place undue hope in him. About a year later, David Remnick conducted an interview with Obama, and a “recording”:http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/30/061030on_onlineonly04 of the interview appeared on _The New Yorker_ website.
I can remember like it was yesterday driving late one night from New York City to my home in Westchester County, and listening to that interview on the way. The interview ended a few moments after I reached the garage, and I remember idling in the darkness to listen to the end, the way NPR always says you do. And I remember thinking, _Wow. This guy is something else._
I date my serious interest in Obama to that interview. In the turbulent years since, I’ve confronted plenty of Obama skeptics who want to know why I support Obama so thoroughly, in the face of a scanty resume and elusive rhetoric that seems to shirk the bone.
And I always say the same thing: _I admire his cast of mind, I admire the way he thinks._ I want a president who tries to confront as many sides of a problem as possible and forge the best possible answer that the political conditions permit, and Obama is the closest to that I’ve ever seen. And everything Obama has done and said since has tended to support that conclusion.
I never thought it would happen, and I always knew it would happen, at the same time. The next few years are going to be ones to remember.

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!

Just under the wire, Dorothy Wickenden and her insightful colleagues have contributed their last (I assume) “edition”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/11/03/081030on_audio_campaign of the “Campaign Trail” podcast before the bulk of the votes are cast tomorrow (absentee voters, of which I am one, still have about a week to get their ballots in). It’s an unusually loose session, and a lot of fun: it emerges that the trio has a common history at _The New Republic_ during the Reagan-Bush years. (Hertzberg was editor, Wickenden managing editor, and Toobin frequent contributor.)
Which leaves us with a question: Wickenden closes out the podcast with a reference to a post-election episode of the podcast—I should hope so!—but what is the fate of the series once the “campaign” part of the title ceases to apply? Will it revert to a more mellow podcast devoted to politics in general, or will they pack it up until late 2011? (Or perhaps late 2010, for the midterms.) I could see merit in either decision (while selfishly contending that the process of laying down the foundations of the post-Bush era demands as much, if not more, attention by our nation’s podcasters). We’ll find out soon enough!