Exit Poll

By the time you read this, you'll probably already know more about the immediate American political scene than I do. You may know whether Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney was the Eli Manning (or Tom Brady) of politics. Maybe you'll have stayed up as network news and cable outfits analyzed the election into the morning hours as if this were November 4.

That, in itself, will be unprecedented. In 2004, the networks relegated (somewhat less) Super Tuesday to intermittent news updates. This time, with Charles Gibson anchoring ABC News' five hours of coverage, it will be another "historic occasion" in the "election of our age." There's already been the Huckabee ambush in Iowa, the McCain return from the politically dead in New Hampshire, the fall of America's Mayor in Florida and round-the-clock Obamania, not to speak of endless media and pollster mis-predictions, which only provided yet more riveting stories for the race of the century.

Let's face it, for media and candidates alike Primary 2008 has been Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Gladiator, The Apprentice ("You're fired!") and American Idol rolled into one--and a ratings wonder as well in which nothing fails. Two testy opponents meet elbow-to-elbow in a debate in Hollywood--with the camera flicking to the star-studded audience as if it were the Oscars... Gasp! Is that really George from Seinfeld?--and no sparks fly; yet the story has wings anyway. Barack and Hillary were cordial! Were "a black man and a white woman" the "perfect future running mates"? Could they team up as "a Democratic dream ticket"? Or would they be back at each other's throats, just the way John McCain and Mitt Romney have been?

It couldn't matter less, not when everything in Campaign 2008 glues American eyeballs to screens without a writer in sight. Who needs on-strike vendors of fiction when a teeming crew of stand-up pundits is eternally on hand to produce political fictions at a moment's notice? Can anyone deny that more of them have been predicting, projecting, suggesting, insinuating, bloviating and offering authoritative conclusions than at any time in our history? If that isn't "historic," what is, even if so many of their predictions prove wrong in the morning light?

It's been feeding-frenzy time in medialand--and it's your enthusiasm off which the media's been feeding.

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