Obsessed? Addicted? It's politics

Are you experiencing disturbing, election-related thoughts? When you close your eyes at night, do the colors of CNN's "magic" electoral map dance in your head like red and blue sugarplums? When you get in your car and hear the same talk-radio personalities saying the same things they said the last time you got in the car, do you wonder what day it is? Are you getting carpal tunnel syndrome from hitting "refresh" at political websites and blogs? Are you aware that most of these sites refresh automatically, yet you find yourself clicking the navigation bar because new information about Sarah Palin's other baby, the alien dinosaur, might have surfaced seconds ago and you can't wait that long to read about it? Are you at once totally sick of election news and insatiably hungry for more? As a result, are you sick of yourself?

Me too, and I don't think we're alone. In the last few weeks, I've noticed a malaise of unprecedented proportions descending on the American public. As much as we want to think and talk about subjects other than the election, we can't. As much as we know we should watch that Netflix movie we've had for months, instead of staring at cable TV, we don't do it. And even though we may hate ourselves in the morning, we can't resist the quick fix of a screaming Huffington Post headline or a Bill O'Reilly conniption fit.

You think I'm talking about campaign fatigue? Sadly, we're way beyond that. Campaign fatigue, with its implication that people have had their fill of election chatter and are turning their attention to more personally enriching matters, is so ... I don't know, 2004. Campaign fatigue was what people felt when John Kerry wouldn't shut up about "the mountains of Tora Bora." Campaign fatigue is what happened when "Swift boat" was no longer a Navy vessel but also a verb of mass destruction.

Not so this election, which has been so all-consuming, especially of late, that mere fatigue (which, according to my calculations, started appearing around the time Stevie Wonder performed "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" at Invesco Field) got quickly usurped by a more powerful blight: obsession.

With the introduction of Palin into the mix, cocktail parties didn't so much buzz as throb. Rumors ricocheted around the Internet at warp speed. TV pundits were so busy they could barely get to the bathroom. Amid the glee and the rancor, there was something exhilarating about the sound of so many people talking about just one thing.