And so, for me, the Presidential campaign ended at about 8:15 pm tonight when USAir flight 2328 took off an hour late from Charleston, South Carolina.

I just got into my apartment and am totally exhausted after 4 days in Charleston. By my count I spent something upwards of 30 full days volunteering for the Edwards campaign, 90% of them during my sabbatical, which comes to an end Feb. 1 (which is why I say the campaign is ending, as I will no longer be able to devote this kind of time to it). I twisted arms for money in New York (hosting Senator Edwards at our home for an event in June and Mrs. Edwards in October), went door-to-door in subzero wind chill in Iowa, made literally thousands of phone calls in New Hampshire and elsewhere to try to persuade people to vote for John Edwards or to get folks to come hear him speak (in case you are in the Greenville, SC area, Senator Edwards will be speaking at 7:15 Saturday night at Greenville High on Vaudry street downtown…), and stood on street corners in South Carolina waving at passing motorists with my Edwards sign.

So what did I learn? The most startling realization was the extent to which the media picks our Presidents for us. With the amount and type of coverage they give to different candidates, their bloviating about who is “winning,” and other means, the media basically tell us who is OK to vote for and who isn’t OK. I saw this most vividly this week in South Carolina, where John Edwards won four years ago but many callers told me that they wanted to vote for him again but probably weren’t going to because it seemed like all they ever heard about was Hillary and Barack so John must not be a good choice. Never a discussion of issues and how they felt Hillary had better foreign policy ideas or Barack’s energy plan was superior – just that. Essentially, they weren’t going to vote for whom they thought was the best person but whom the media told them were the appropriate ones to vote for.

The second thing is that the way in which the media covers the issues (when they bother to, which is quite rare) forces candidates to try to solve highly complex problems with single sentence answers. Of course the American public, whose attention span is so short that I am thinking we need to put Adderall in the water supply so they can actually focus on something for longer than 30 seconds, doesn’t help much. So when campaigning you find yourself using snappy sound bites like “protecting American jobs” as a substitute for a meaningful discussion of trade policy. There’s this great speech by the fictional President played by Michael Douglas at the end of the film The American President when he speaks to voters and says something along the lines of “we have serious problems, people, and we need serious answers.” That’s true, but the process we have set up to choose a President isn’t going to allow for anything approaching a serious discussion of serious issues. The media won’t have it, and the public can’t pay attention long enough anyway.

So do I sound bitter and jaded? Well, I’m not. Sure my exhaustion must be coloring what I am writing, but the incredible idealism of the staffers I worked with renewed my faith in the political process in a fundamental way. So, Lizzie, Tyler, Peter, Elizabeth, Marissa, Dan, Cory, Angie, Alicia, David, Adele and the countless other staffers and volunteers whose paths crossed mine, thank you. You are what makes me proud to be an American citizen.  And Peace Out Charleston staff: TTYL.

Posted by Kevin on Saturday, January 19th, 2008 at 12:30 am.