Election season in however many words this is

I think they finally took down the campaign headquarters (blurrily pictured above) of the former gubernatorial democratic candidates, which, decorated with trimphant banners and complete with a giant sign wishing the heretofore unsuccessful candidate a happy birthday, seemed a macabre reminder of the ravages of electoral disappointment.

Barring any successful court challenges, it seems like the election season has mercifully come to an end.

I'm not actually sure what happened during any of it -- or what was accomplished. Most of it exists as flashes in the back of my brain -- like a war wound I have yet to forget, am too traumatized to remember.

In the states it seemed like everyone was in this hysterical tea-party-induced frenzy, either because you think the election of these salt-of-the-earth middle Americans with limited political knowledge but ample political resentment signals the end of the world, or because you are actually a salt-of-the-earth middle American thinking that the Tea Party is the next Revolution (but not the communist kind).

At least that's what it seemed like from 7000-11,000 miles across the Pacific.

Here the election season was no less frenzied, or absent of political hijinks, or media manipulation, or any of the grandstanding/righteous indignaton of any campaign season.

But, it was my first election viewed from the vantage of on-the-ground reporting, and one with enough colorful detail for at least one blog entry.

Such as, you ask?

Well, for one thing -- there's the wave. (Again, pictured blurrily above).

When I first started getting press releases and/or doing interviews in which people casually mentioned they would be doing "the wave" I thought, huh, that's weird.

But, I nonetheless dutifully reported that this would be an event that people could experience during their afternoon commute home -- imagining groups of school children lined up in stadium seats, standing up and down to mimic the rollicking of an ocean wave.

What else could it be?

In fact, the wave is just that. It's people standing along the side of the road, often during and in rush hour traffic, waving frantically with signs -- in support of political candidates, against cancer, to raise money for good causes, or raise awareness about social ills.

It kind of took me a while to realize that this is a pillar of Guam society -- and that it was a critical campaigning tool.
In the final days before the election, the corners of downtown Hagatna were sort of like a scene from a 1980s film about dueling street performers -- with opposing camps on adjacent corners, holding signs, waving flags, blaring their own doctored versions of popular songs with not-quite rhyming customized lyrics that prominently dropped the names of the candidates here and there.

There were also seemingly non-partisan songs, like "Under the Boardwalk" that also somehow had been commandered for use in the war betwixt the stereos, although I've never figured out exactly why.

Post-election, I was sure the wave would be retired for at least a little while -- but it turns out the post-win wave is apparently an important part of keeping your profile in the minds of voters.

And then, of couse, there's the motorcade.

I'm not sure if it makes more or less sense to enlist hundreds of cars and trucks (and some vehicles in beween) to drive around for hours blaring songs and waving campaign-themed flare on an island that really only has one main road, which runs in a loop around an island, as opposed to say, in on a midwestern highway, or a crowded New York street.

To my knowledge, neither place has tried it.

But, I have to say, having spent much of one long afternoon following a particular motorcade around -- it is a truly unique experience.

People deck their cars out like they are going to the prom -- granted, a partisan prom in which attendees where billboards and plaster every square foot of themselves with bumper stickers -- and ride around in an enthusiastic, yet mostly well organized caravan.

If you aren't stuck in traffic for hours as the slowly moving line of cars makes its way along one- or two-lane roadways, or tries to all turn left at the same traffic light, it seems like a joyful experience.

People listen to radios loudly, all at the same time -- honk.

It's like a parade, but you know, without the walking. Or like tailgating, in a moving car.

Perhaps the most prominent feature of the election, and one that will provde, no doubt, to out last at least a few campaign promises, are the signs.

On houses, in front yards, on public easements, along roadsides, on buildings, on cars (see above), in windows, on other signs -- these things are literally everywhere.

During the election the warring signs played a no-less prominent role than the omniprescent TV commercials, and near-ubiquitous newspaper and radio ads.
The candidates running for the executive branch seemed to waste no time in pasting their faces all over the island.

With 30 candidates running for 15 senate seats, the sides of the roads were getting particularly crowded in the elections final days.

Even those running for less prominent offices, and, in fact, non-competitive offices, seemed to find it necessary to stop traffic occasionally to erect a sign on the roadside.
And of course, there were the glossy, incredibly well produced, but no less irritating campaign signs of the gubernatorial candidates, whose sleek marketing paraphernalia have been gracing the sides of buildings for as long as I can remember.

Now that the election is over, I fear that many will end up fading, rotting, becoming ironic reminders of elections past, long before anyone bothers removing them.

Unless of course the candidate knows they will have to run for office again in a few years. In that case, they will no doubt salvage the best of their signs, so they can put them up again, two years from now.