Still, methinks the gentlemen doth protest too much. Both noted the excitement the race has generated, especially among those who usually tune politics out.
"The amazing story in Maryland is, in spite of the fact there is scarcely a question of the outcome, people still are registering to vote," Crenson said. "This is an election people want to participate in."
"It's an extraordinary year," Sabato said. "First of all, people hate Bush, and you have the concern over the wars and the state of the economy. And then you have these fascinating candidates.
"This was truly a Broadway production," he said. "And we've had some off-off-Broadway ones."
As closing night approaches and - if the pundits are right - the mystery of the ending continues to fade, I've turned my attention elsewhere. Forget Obama and McCain, I worry about the fate of Nate Silver (of FiveThirtyEight fame), or Margaret and Helen.
Oh, you don't know the bloggers (well, it's mostly Helen who posts), who would be just another couple of potty-mouthed Internet blabbers except for the fact that they're 80-something women? (Unless, of course, they're two - or one or 10 - conceptual artists in downtown Manhattan; as the New Yorker cartoon noted, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog.)
I worry they'll all vanish, Brigadoon-like, after the election. I worry that they'll go back to whatever life they had before the campaign, and I'll go back to - what? E-mails from Nigerians with 50,000,000,000,000,000 dollars (U.S.) that they want to share with dearest madame me? A, frankly, not-up-to-par season of Dancing With The Stars? The dishes in the sink?
But mostly, I worry that people will forget to, you know, vote. Not just follow the campaign online, or laugh at the viral videos, or stew about what's going on in those other, swingier states.
Yet another factoid I discovered en route to something else: Guess where the U.S. ranks, out of 172 countries, in voter turnout? After Italy (No. 1), after South Africa (No. 10), after even those laid-back Jamaicans (No. 118). According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization that promotes democracy, we're all the way down at 139.
So you might not get your pick on Tuesday, but surely you can do something about that, right?
