Welcome back, my friends, to the race that never ends

Award-winning writer Bob Greene is riding CNN's Election Express across the country in the final weeks before the election.

ABOARD THE CNN ELECTION EXPRESS (CNN) -- "You're kidding me, right?"

The speaker was a man named Derrick Stefford, 32. We had not, as a matter of fact, been kidding. We had merely been asking him the question that we've been asking people as we cross the country.

"If you're really not kidding," Stefford said, looking as if, hearing our words, he wanted to cross the street as quickly as possible, "my answer is: I can't wait until it's over."

The theory -- one that has been shot down repeatedly since the first time we asked the question -- was that this year's presidential campaign has been so compelling, has generated such high television ratings, has been the topic of so many conversations, that it has become a part of the very atmosphere.

The campaign has been like oxygen, or the sky -- it's just there, all the time. Watch how the candidates are taking the home stretch »

Thus, the question: Will you miss the campaign when it's gone?

"No," Stefford said. "Every time I turn on the TV, there it is. Let it end."

Here's a nice couple -- Bill Miller, 73, and his wife Sue, 72. Will you miss the campaign when it's gone?

"Not at all," Bill Miller said. "I've gotten e-mails about the candidates that I know are untrue. Or half-truths. And those are the ones forwarded by my friends. It's time for this to be over."

"I think we've been saturated, don't you?" said Sue Miller. "I think there will be things in everyday life that we can think about instead of thinking about the candidates. That will be nice. Everyday life."

Karen Dyer, 45: "I'm tired of it. I'd like to read about something happy instead."

Such as?

"Such as the war being over," she said. "That would be happy, wouldn't it? I'd like to read about that, not about McCain and Obama."

The grand theory of ours -- that people will long for the campaign, like a departed and fondly remembered lover -- was not, as they say in politics, gaining much traction.

Still, maybe the trick was to increase the sample. Add to the number of people being asked the question.

So, John Eddins, when the campaign is over, will you wish it were still here?

"If it's over, it's over," he said. He said he was 62, and had watched many presidential campaigns in his lifetime. "We need to stop talking about the two candidates, and get to work. It's going to take a miracle to fix things in this country, no matter who wins. This has gone on long enough."

Randy Vincent, 48, summed up what the chances are that he will be yearning for the campaign once it's over. "None whatsoever."

He said the reason he has had enough of the campaign is that "whatever happens, it's not going to favor the small man at all, the underpaid skilled laborer." He said he was talking about himself. He's a carpenter.

"The candidates for president have been the main topic for long enough as it is. Finish it like it ought to be finished. Enough's enough."

Garrett McKinley, 37, said, "The country's still as divided as ever, so why would anyone miss a campaign that's been a part of that? We're fighting two wars, the economy is going nuts -- it's time for the campaigning to stop.

"Whoever wins, wins. It's not going to be peaches, either way."

We did find one person who -- mildly -- expressed the thought that she might miss the campaign when it was gone.

"It really has given people something to talk about," said Sarah Saussy, 27. "Strangers talk to strangers about the campaign. So that's been a good thing."

So she may feel a twinge of emptiness when it's all over?

"Emptiness?" she said, knowing a leading question when she hears one.

"Emptiness? Come on."

No one's going to miss it.

But that doesn't really matter.

Randy Vincent, the carpenter, again: "Why are you assuming it's going to be over?" he said. "It's not.

"Even when it ends, it won't end. Do you think that if Obama loses, he's just going to disappear? Do you think that if McCain loses, Sarah Palin is just going to go away?

"The campaigns never end. Somewhere in the back of the candidates' minds, whoever loses, the minute they find out they've lost, the thought will be there: 'I'll get 'em next time.'

"And it will already have started all over again."

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