I don’t know about you but I am having a hard time sleeping, and a tough time focusing on the day-to-day tasks of my job. Sure, there’s that big investigative piece waiting to run once the oxygen is back in the room after this extraordinary election. And there’s all the knocking on wood and superstitious rituals that must be attended to as we head to November 4th. And there’s the Nation’s election pool which requires math reminding me of all the math we did during the delegate counting between January and June.

And who the hell organizes the calendar so a pumped up Halloween arrives the Friday before the mother of all Election nights?

I’ve decided to go to a Halloween party tomorrow night ….The tix for entrance: a contribution to Planned Parenthood on behalf of Sarah Palin. I may go as an Alaskan snow queen–after all, why waste the good stuff I picked up when the Nation cruise was in Juneau in July 2007…That was the same month the National Review and Weekly Standard cruisers docked and decided Juneau was not their kind of town….not for the elite bunch they were…and they quickly jumped at the invitation to lunch with Sarah Palin in the luxo Governor’s mansion …Meanwhile, The Nation cruisers hung with the people of Juneau at a rally organized by the city’s Veterans for Peace.

Too many nights these last days I’ve ended up glued, eyes glazed over like one of those vampires on TrueBlood, watching David Gergen or Roland Martin– or that Halloween-scary Bay Buchanan– trying to say something that hasn’t been said in this endless campaign. Gergen at least has shown that conventional wisdomeers can find new life in new times.

There’s not much to talk about in these last hours. But they dig it up. Polls tightening? Another smear launched into the blogomediasphere? Will the bogeyman of Socialism scare children and adults alike? Is there a new Obama supporting Professor to rake over the coals of anti-intellectualism? Will Joe the Plumber meet Tita The Contractor. Who will give them reality shows when this is all over?

And this will be over–in hours that can be counted. What’s unhealthy is that I remember when we had 637 days to go in the campaign.

In these last two years, electoral politics became, again, after too long a time, a vehicle for raising expectations and spreading hope. The Obama campaign has stayed true to the mantra that animated those who organized their hearts out this year: “Respect-Empower-Include.” It is a respect for the dignity of people, for the work they do, that will be needed if we are to emerge whole out of this grim time of economic trauma.

Meanwhile, the crawl on CNN reports that 760,000 jobs have been lost this year.

We got a lot of work to do. It will take the electricity of hope, a belief in social solidarity and a commitment to continue the organizing that has driven this extraordinary campaign year to the places it has gone. I can’t wait for Tuesday night.