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“Every election is different. Each has its own rhythm, its peculiar melody, its unpredictable barks and squeaks. But in one respect every election is the same: the press coverage. It’s always an embarrassment, and always in exactly the same way. Politicians learn from their mistakes, sometimes. We just go on repeating ours.
“We can’t help ourselves, it seems. After every election we retire, defeated, to our newsroom post-mortems, and each time we vow: never again. . . . . Never again will we chase after every fleeting poll, salivate over every minor ‘gaffe.’ Never again the gotcha question, the silly photo op, the constant search for ‘defining moments’ and ‘turning points,’ the investing of trivial campaign mishaps with symbolic import — as if the great river of events were just naturally teeming with metaphors for us to fish….
