Welcome to Wednesday, Nov. 3. It will be a day of great celebration for some, of fist-pounding defeat for others. While one half cheers and the other slinks off to the bar, the pundits will be out in force. But fear not, campaigners. This reporter will skip the questions about income tax and welfare. I just have the one question. And that one question is, why? Why do you do it at all?

Why batter your body with a schedule normally reserved for combat soldiers? Why expose yourself to scrutiny and public humiliation? Why seek a position where nothing you do will be good enough, half of those you work for will hate you, and even those you trust the most will stomp your ass if it means their own advancement.

It’s a mystery to me, this election business. From where I stand, it seems like crawling up a hill of broken glass only to be kicked and spit upon once you reach the peak. Like a twisted game show in which the most sleep-deprived and self-flagellated wins the prize.

The prize being long hours and constant scorn.

Our candidates run a yearlong course that is like “Fear Factor” without the bugs and crotch-squeezing harnesses. It’s a year of shaking hands, knocking on doors, jumping through hoops when a potential voter expects you to.

By the time Election Day rolls around, these people have got to be zombies. Zombies with fresh-cut hair, ironed shirts and the ability to say: “I appreciate the opportunity to make a difference” while still technically asleep.

I got to hang out with the walking dead a week or so ago. Two nights straight, I saw them at separate functions. They came early and stayed late. They shook hand after hand and beamed pasted-on smiles. They tried to remember names to go with each face that came along.

Here is Hank, a dairy farmer. Be sure to ask about his wife, Beatrice, who was ailing with the flu last time you saw him.

This nice lady is Gertrude; she knits and has nine cats. Compliment her scarf and you might snag votes from the entire bingo crowd.

I’m not implying that the candidates are insincere. I’m implying that they might be inhuman. They do this for months. Months! They travel from city to city, town to town, sitting in hard chairs in drafty rooms in the basement of the library, community college, Grange hall.

They sit there with name plates in front of them and smile through questions flung from snotty, know-it-all students or cranky old people with potholes in front of their houses. They sit and nod and try to find answers that will satisfy people who are never satisfied with anything.

Oh, and the press. Those pompous asses are everywhere you go. They call your house at 10 p.m. to ask about the latest poll. God forbid you should relax with a Coors and watch “Cheers” reruns. God forbid you try to relax for one hour when you don’t have to suck up to one person or another.

Seeking office, what joy it must be. Stopping along a deserted road to take a leak could derail your campaign after a year’s worth of groveling and butt-kissing. A drunken-driving arrest 30 years old could come back to destroy you. An off-color joke uttered at an office party in the 1970s could fatally smear an otherwise pristine life.

It’s the public scrutiny that would knock me down in very short order. If you want to run for any office at all, friend, the dirty part of your background better be buried, and buried deep. Because every voter will tell you that they demand character in their candidates, even if that voter happens to have three wives, a rental unit full of porn and a fairly serious glue habit. They don’t want any boozers, cheaters, gamblers, pot heads or layabouts. They will not waste their precious vote on a sinner, nossir.

So you better be righteous. And versatile. You better be willing to take care of those monster potholes on Sanctimony Street while finding a solution to the deficit problem and bringing a halt to starvation. And while you’re at it, be personable. Because God knows the American people want the kind of candidate with whom they could sit at a bar and talk about baseball.

Recent studies have shown that 98 percent of voters have at one time or another uttered the following line:

“I think I’ll vote for that guy. He seems like the kind of guy you could have a beer with.”

Which is kind of ironic. Because in my view, it’s an outright miracle that every single person who runs for office doesn’t turn into an aftershave-swilling alcoholic.

And while they’re running this insane marathon, it’s not just the public and the press a candidate needs to worry about. There’s also the opposition, a man or woman who would like nothing more than to see you slip on a political banana peel and slide into the gutter of oblivion. Oh, he or she will claim to respect you as a political foe, but chances are good that they have hired someone to rifle through your garbage in search of receipts from a Craigslist prostitute.

It’s filthy, this business. And demanding and thankless. To me, a political position offers roughly the same benefits as that of a speed bump.

And yet today, all the winners will prop their eyes open with broken toothpicks and stumble to the podium. They’ll thank their supporters and promise to do their best. When asked why they do it, they’ll smile and say that they do it because they want to make a difference. They want to help their fellow humans.

It’s hokey and tired and probably true. So congratulations, winners. You’ve earned the right to serve two or four years trying to please everybody. Just remember, while holding up the peace sign with one hand and drinking champagne with the other, that the campaign was the easy part. Now you have real work to do.

And to the losers, don’t get too down. Tell an off-color joke at a party or take a leak at the side of the road. Get rip-roaring drunk and browse Craigslist. You’ve earned the right to do it. And for the moment, no one will be watching.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. You can sign up for his campaign at [email protected].