What a great assignment, this gig driving around Lewiston/Auburn the morning after.

Sifting through the fallout from The Most Contentious Presidential Election of Our Lifetime. Watching people laugh, cry, daydream and kick untethered objects in disgust.

Perhaps I wasn’t fully prepared for the raw emotion, but who, lacking full body armor and a six-pack of handkerchiefs, would be? Oh, and don’t forget the earplugs. Surely gloating, excuse-making, even threatening would dominate the dialogue.

“I thought he would win,” George Gorman of Oxford said of his choice, incumbent George W. Bush. “I’m very glad.”

Glad?

Now this is an occasion that a good Republican should greet with more vigor than if, say, he won $10 on a lottery scratch ticket.

Think back to last week, George. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since the Stone Age.

Grown men wept. You can bet your autographed Carl Yastrzemski baseball card that there will be a boom of babies born in New England next summer with the names Manny, Orlando and Curt. No mystery what spawned them.

So, George, America just rehired the guy who shares your first name for four years. And he was your choice. Doesn’t this feel like winning a championship?

“Yes,” he said, taking a break from his copy of The New York Times at the Auburn Public Library. “I guess so.”

Maybe all Bush backers are simply sportsmanlike winners. Nope. Just subjected myself to five minutes of Rush Limbaugh on the journey northward on Center Street, so I know that’s not true.

John Kerry’s crowd couldn’t exude such ease. Exit polls gave them a false sense of security. Many of them expected to be dancing in the streets before midnight. Some stayed up all night only to learn that Ohio, potential source of enough electoral votes for their man to win the presidency, was a lost cause.

Surely a strapping Korean War veteran would let loose with an earful.

“I don’t know. I don’t have much to say, really. I liked the other guy because he’s a veteran,” said Ray Levesque of Lewiston. “But only one man can win.”

War and the economy fueled this volatile election season. Funny to hear someone extending the benefit of a boatload of doubt.

“Bush has to finish what he started,” Levesque said. “He’s got a huge job ahead of him.”

Man, this is a rip-off. Somebody shout or pout, please.

Perhaps the answer sits among a sea of saved e-mails. Somewhere, a passionate soul who took the time to call me a genius or a moron during the campaign has one final rant left in them.

David Mahoney of Hebron took the bait, but my catch was minimal.

“I’m disappointed and somewhat fearful of the continuing damage the Bush administration may do to the United States and our position in the world,” he replied, “but I am not resigned to turning the entire political agenda over to them. We still have checks and balances in this country and I expect good, thoughtful citizens and elected leaders will employ them to get some good done even with this terrible administration continuing in power.”

Translation: Bush didn’t win. Kerry didn’t win. Democracy prevailed in a landslide.

More than 120 million Americans spoke Tuesday by way of check marks and arrows. The next day, few arrows were thrown.

Other world leaders and regimes might not love our president. Maybe they wouldn’t adore his challenger, either. But they watch our system, and whether or not they admit it, they marvel.

Most of us didn’t embark on a drinking binge. We reported to work Wednesday morning and didn’t see vandalism or civic unrest along the way.

Too bad the rest of the world isn’t always so contentious.

Kalle Oakes is the Sun Journal’s columnist. His e-mail is [email protected].