Decision day

Temporary arrangements often seem to become permanent. Think, for example, of that temporary job you once took that led down a new career path, or that old piece of furniture at home you assumed you’d throw out long ago.

The phrase “permanent campaign” began being widely used during the Clinton presidency, although chief executives have always kept an eye on public opinion in formulating and presenting policy. But the truth, one hopes, is that campaigns are still cycles rather than permanent fixtures.

No campaign has ever been so intense for so long as this one. It has sometimes felt endless, but we can be thankful that it will come, if not to an end today, then at least to a pause.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the GOP candidate, has been running for the White House for a decade, having kept an eye on the prize throughout the two terms of the man who beat him to the nomination in 2000.

Likewise, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has been running ever faster for the presidency since his 2004 convention speech in Boston that sparked both adulation and furrowed brows among Democrats who doubted their actual candidate’s ability as a closer.

The 2008 presidential campaign has been extraordinary — and it has all come down to today. All the passion generated by Bush’s controversial arrival in power, his foreign wars and his grim recent unpopularity; all the questions over Obama’s inexperience, liberal votes and questionable associates; all McCain’s awkwardness, barbed jokes, bad temper, near-political-death experiences and improbable comebacks have finally brought us to the day that America makes its climactic choice.

It makes its choice, too, about the composition of the Senate and House on Capitol Hill. Every indication is that the Democrats are heading for big victories in both chambers, that today’s voting will entrench the power of the left-of-center party and usher in an era in which one party will get all the credit or blame for the fortunes of the nation.

The GOP arrived in this position after the 2002 election, and few even within their own ranks would now argue with the proposition that they blew it. Rep. Tom Reynolds (N.Y.), who ran the GOP’s doomed House campaign two years ago, was unable to articulate a succinct and persuasive reason why America should reelect a Republican House. And the party is still trying to work out an answer to this conundrum. In the wake of its probable setbacks today, that question will dominate a round of internecine bloodletting. The same question will be asked among the party’s diminished representation in the Senate, which may  shrivel so far as to be incapable of filibustering legislation.

Democrats expect to be riding high by tonight. They are probably right. The scent of victory is in their nostrils. They expect to control Washington from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

They can already pooh-pooh Karl Rove’s hope of a permanent Republican majority. But here’s the thing — elections ensure that there are no permanent majorities. Those temporary arrangements that become entrenched are eventually uprooted and cast aside.