And They're Off.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Off the Map - Essay

As the curtain mercifully fell on the Most Important Election of Your Lifetime, the nation breathed a collective sigh of relief. Or did it? Sure, there were enough Byzantine plot twists and darkly rich comic characters to exhaust Dostoevsky's older, smarter brother.

I imagine more than a few of you woke up spent, limp, barely able to grasp your coffee cup and raise it to quivering lips. But now that the votes have been tallied and the results buried deep in Almanac City, you're happier than John McCain in a flag factory. Then, this column ... is not for you.

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This is for the millions of us political junkies who feel emptier than a Chrysler SUV showroom. Whose zest for life has faded like the colors of the posters in a video store window, facing west.

Obama's new Administration does guarantee a steady stream of politics blaring from the front pages, but far short of the decibel level we've inured ourselves to.

Chris Matthews may continue to bellow, but it will be a shell of his former shrill. Joe Biden undoubtedly will insert his foot in his mouth so often that he should invest in mint-flavored shoelaces to facilitate flossing, but who has the energy to throw his blunders up on YouTube? And if they do, so what? If a faux pas is uploaded and no eyeballs visit, is it really a gaffe?

It wasn't just the horserace; the sidereal sideshows were just as intriguing. Since the middle of 2006, electoral websites sprang up like mushroom spores in a cow field after a Wisconsin spring rain. Rachel Maddow became a video star. Cable ratings crested higher than the Stanford Band after a homecoming win in the '60s. The rise and fall of un- inevitable candidates, surges, purges, and financial lurches, and Keith Olbermann riveted us like so many three-year-olds holding a mason jar full of paisley-painted fireflies.

What I'm saying is, I don't want to live in a world without Presidential campaigning. And don't give me that midterm stuff, either. I need the real thing. I want XM satellite radio's POTUS Oh Eight to become...