Thankfully, the interminable election is finally over. Seems like it had been going on for years. Eventually, the ads all blurred together in one long loop of self-promotion.

Remember?

“I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.”

“I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this message.”

“I’m John Edwards and I approved this message.”

Then:

“I’m Hillary Clinton and I approved this message.”

“I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”

“I’m John McCain and I approved this message.”

Then only Obama and McCain.

And finally, as they say in NASCAR, there was the last man standing. Barack wasn’t my first choice, but I didn’t really care by that time. I just wanted the country to pick someone and get it over with.

I think we should pass new election laws like some other countries have — no campaigning until six weeks before the election. We should set rules about money, too. Everyone gets X-number of dollars from the citizens. Use them wisely. May the best man (yep, “man” still seems to be the operative word) win.

After an election, the opposite side always gets its paranoia going full throttle about what horrible things are now going to happen to the country since the bad guy won. On my police discussion group, the cops are manning the battlements, fully expecting President Obama to ban guns entirely, probably tomorrow.

At any moment, there will be a knock on my door. It will be the law demanding that I turn over my Smith and Wesson and my Glock, and long guns too if I had them. Thankfully, it is a directive the cops declare they will not obey.

I wrote to them that I belonged to a political discussion group, too. It originated to support General Wesley Clark, then switched to Hillary and finally, most of us, to Obama. We range from politically moderate (me) to mildly liberal to wildly liberal. I told the police officers that since I had joined in 2003, I’d never heard one person mention the desire to ban firearms. And that, furthermore, even if President-elect Obama leans toward gun control, with two wars and an economy in crisis, I thought this issue would be way, way down his priority list. I just tried to reassure them that their guns were probably safe, you know, at least for the time being.

I got flamed big time. They didn’t want to hear it. They are too in love with their fiercely-held assumptions. One guy told me I was the only one he knew who voted for Obama. I said, “Well, he won so there must have been more than just me, maybe even a couple people in law enforcement.”

But if the police are panicked about weapon confiscation, others are obsessed about lesser matters. I have found it depressing that television anchors and news/entertainment reporters have been able to expound endlessly about the dress Michelle Obama wore at her husband’s acceptance speech. Like it was right up there in importance with what to do about Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Of course, Michelle was only the last, not the first, woman to go through this nonsense. First, it was Hillary. Her pant suits were analyzed and criticized. One writer got a whole column out of a blouse with only the merest vee-neck. She was breathlessly cynical about Hillary showing “cleavage.” She was trying to play the gender card, trying to get an edge, I guess, by vamping people with a hint of 62-year-old bosom. Oh, please.

Then it was Sarah’s expensive wardrobe. I don’t know if the allegations were even true about the campaign spending $150,000 to outfit Gov. Palin, and I don’t care. Only women are ever questioned about clothing choices. And they can’t win either way.

Be too fashionable and they are accused of being shallow, elitist, spoiled clothes horses. Dress not well enough, and they are called low-class and dowdy, especially if they hale from Arkansas or Alaska or a similar non-hip location. I anticipate the New York Times, the cable stations, the news magazines deliciously dissecting every appearance decision made by Michelle Obama for the next four years. Meanwhile, the male politicos could wear a suit from Armani or one from Sears and no one would even notice.

My last main memory of this campaign is a disappointment in people. We watched African-Americans, with tears running down their cheeks, telling us how affirming it felt to finally have a black president, sort of like they were within reach of Martin Luther King’s promised land at last. But eight states had initiatives about gay marriage on their ballots and guess what group was least likely to support such referendums, according to surveys? The answer is African-Americans, by a ratio of 69 percent opposed to 31 percent in favor. I was stunned by that statistic. I don’t consider it an ethnic aberration but a human one. So often, we see and decry the prejudices directed against us but instead of empathizing with another discriminated against group, we just go right ahead and pass those prejudices down.

But gays are different, I heard it said. Yes, that’s the key word to so many of our problems, isn’t it? Different.

Vicki Williams is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com