You are going to miss them, aren’t you? No matter how the election turned out yesterday — and I have no idea, since we go to press before the results came in last night — the politicians, their spouses, and their children are now gone. All that remains now, especially for the losers, are their signs and brochures, scattered hither and yon like locust shells, reminding us only of the swarm that was.

Only last week, you couldn’t walk out to get the mail without seeing a Clinton. It was like a creepy science fiction movie, “Invasion Of The Delegate Snatchers” (soon to follow, I am sure, the even more thrilling sequel “Invasion Of The Super Delegate Snatchers”). You wake up and everything SEEMS normal, until you notice your neighbors wandering around in a daze muttering about the gas tax.

Barack Obama has not been to Western North Carolina, but his wife made an appearance or two. Both candidates have spent weeks flying back and forth between Indiana and North Carolina, trying their best to tip the scales in a race that has been equal parts historic, very close, and nearly impossible to predict. It has seemed for weeks that Obama’s lead was insurmountable and that he was on the cusp of putting Clinton away for good, only to have her escape several occasions where a knockout punch seemed inevitable.

If Obama did win in Indiana and North Carolina yesterday, then consider that knockout punch finally delivered, but something tells me — well, the pattern (such as it is) in this campaign tells me — that the race is going to continue on for a few more weeks, until the super delegates finally feel enough pressure to commit in one direction or the other and end this thing before the convention.

I am not sure that the length and tenor of the race has done much for either of the candidates, although I am not ready to say that it is a big bonus for Republican nominee John McCain either, who seems to be an afterthought in each news cycle as long as Clinton and Obama continue to slug it out. On the other hand, Obama’s charismatic personality and soaring rhetoric seem to have been pickled to some degree in the sour brine of politics. You can almost see him pucker every time someone wants to talk about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or why he won’t wear a flag pin on his lapel instead of asking about health care, the war, or the economy.

At times, he has seemed smug, and at other times, petulant, as if he is having second thoughts about this fraternity he is pledging. For the most part, he has succeeded in keeping his campaign focused on its major goals — to energize and galvanize traditionally apathetic voters, especially young people, and to posit himself as a new and improved alternative to the status quo. If people are really hungry for change, do we really want to continue the Bush-Clinton dynasty? He never fails to remind us, as he should, that most of Clinton’s current positions — on the war and on NAFTA, just to name two — are exactly that: current. She did vote for the war, and she did support NAFTA. But the politics were different then, weren’t they?

If Obama appears to be a little soured by the battle, Clinton is right in her element. Whether you like her or not, Clinton never pretends to be above politics, as Obama non-believers suggest he pretends to be (and believers insist that he is). If Hillary had Bill’s charm, finesse, or political skill, this race would have been over months ago, although it has been widely and duly noted that as a candidate for first gentleman, Bill has not been nearly so charming and persuasive as he was running for president. Still, the Clintons are master politicians, and Hillary has obviously picked up a few tips from her spouse, crying on cue one moment (when the general consensus is that she lacks compassion and sensitivity), spoiling for a fight in the next (when voters might then doubt her toughness or resolve). We’ll OBLITERATE Iran! Anything you say, Senator, as long as the cameras are rolling.

The most obvious give away to me is her flip flop on Florida and Michigan, two states that were disqualified before the primaries even began for rules violations. Both candidates knew that while voters in each state would vote, no delegates would be awarded due to these rules violations. Neither campaigned in either state, and Obama even removed his name from the ballot in Michigan. At that time, neither candidate made any protest or did anything other than acknowledge that the situation was an unfortunate consequence of those states’ own ill-considered actions.

And then Clinton “won” both states. Since then, it has magically become a crucial part of her message. These states should count after all! Indeed, they DO count. I have heard her say repeatedly that she is ahead in the popular vote, if you count Michigan and Florida, which she does now that she has won them, a feat made easier by the fact that Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in one of them. If Clinton is more in her element than Obama, than all I can think is, more’s the pity.

However it turned out, they are all gone now, the politicians and their families, at least for awhile. Like the locusts, however, we know they will be back again someday.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at jchriscox@bellsouth.net.)