Other than the non-stop phone calls, the thing I loathe most about election season is…

…the inevitable round of “what it all means” punditry, including a good dose of “is liberalism/conservatism dead” and “are we looking at a fundamental realignment of…”

Oh, and “mandate.” Do they have one? Don’t they have one? Ugh.

And it’s starting already:

A defeat for Barack Obama on Tuesday would be no ordinary loss for Democrats.

It would be a traumatic experience: the death of the dream of liberal realignment embodied in Obama’s insurgent 2008 campaign.

That’s in Politico today, found via Pirate’s Cove. This is a doubly bad example, because it’s an attempt at pre-overanalyzing what this election means to the last election’s overanalyzing.

This, however, from another Politico story:

For Republicans, the only thing harder than losing to Barack Obama might be explaining it.

Yeah, that’ll be a tough one.