CNN

Kari Tindall

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS (CNN)
“I don’t think we’re ever, as a nation, going to completely come together," said Kari Tindall, 25. “And I don’t think we really need to.”

She’s a fundraiser for a theater and arts complex in Iowa; as we moved through Iowa on our way to where we’ll be spending Election Day, we talked with people not about their predictions for who will win and who will lose on Tuesday, but about their thoughts concerning this long campaign itself– and what will come after.

“It’s our nature in this country to have two sides to everything,” Tindall said. “That‘s just what we do. So to expect, after the election, for people who supported Obama and people who supported McCain to completely agree on everything, just because one candidate has won. . .you know that’s not going to happen.

“What would be good, though, is if we’re able to use the experience of the campaign we've just been through to try to find some common ground when it's over. That in itself would be better than the way things have been.”

She said she worries that the campaign, in its final weeks, “has turned a little bit ugly." The way she perceives it, Barack Obama has managed to give the impression that he “always keeps his cool,” while John McCain at certain times “seems overwhelmed.”

But she recognizes that those perceptions will not be helpful once there is one winner and one loser. And she thinks the reason there has been so much interest– and so much acrimony– during the presidential campaign of 2008 is that “there’s a lot more news coverage than ever before."

It’s not that citizens make the conscious choice to be so consumed, even obsessed, with news, she said.

“It’s that you can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere. You couldn’t avoid the news this year even if you tried.”