OBAMA'S fist bump. Palin's lipstick. McCain's plumber. Clinton's tears.
We've been through a lot in the two-year slog that will be remembered as a memorable US presidential campaign.
What will endure? What will fade faster than a campaign promise?
Remember the furore over Obama's lipstick-on-a-pig comment, and whe
ther it was a veiled insult to Palin? Or Hillary Rodham Clinton's gripping account of her arrival in Bosnia under sniper fire, which never happened? And Joe Biden's putdown of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's speeches as nothing more than "a noun, a verb and 9/11".
There was Palin's eye-popping announcement during the Republican convention that her unwed teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant, as well as her star turn telling people the difference between a "hockey mom" and pitbull was lipstick. And musician will.i.am's viral internet paean to Obama, "Yes We Can", featuring celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson.
There was Clinton's doomsday ad claiming she was best equipped for the 3am phone call.
And McCain's web ad mocking Obama as "The One" – complete with images of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea.
There was the Republican convention chant of "drill, baby, drill". And the Democrats' rejoinder of "jobs, baby, jobs."
Obama had Obama Girl.
McCain had Joe the Plumber.
Remember Clinton choking up in New Hampshire about what was at stake in the race, and later declaring that was when she'd "found her voice".
Or Biden going on about President Franklin D Roosevelt's TV presence during the 1929 stock market crash – when FDR wasn't president at the time and there wasn't any television?
Obama's address on race, way back in March, could well stand the test of time whoever wins.
When his campaign was thrown off-stride by his former pastor's incendiary remarks about race, Obama faced the issue head-on: "The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races," he said.
The victor's path to the presidency will be well chronicled in future history books. The loser will get lesser treatment. Unless, perhaps, it is Obama.
