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I have this problem with anticlimax.

Maybe it’s just a biological hangover that comes from two days of adrenaline, but I’m pretty sure it’s mostly psychological. I got the same way after weekend trips to the weddings of my college friends: I always hated the Sunday mornings. Friday night and Saturday were just non-stop upbeat fun, reuniting with old friends, making new memories, opening a new chapter of life for at least two of them (who knows what else happened in those hotels), and then…Sunday morning, there were the chance encounters at breakfast, hasty checkouts through clouds of hangover to catch a mid-day flight, rushed and unceremonious goodbyes, and plenty of invisible early departures that didn’t even garner a hug. Those Sunday let-downs always made me queasy and mopey.

Wandering around Charleston on Tuesday looking for a WiFi cafe and comparing my immediate past to my near-term future was little different, and that emotional concussion combined with trying to spool back up and remember what the hell it is I do here in my lab both contributed to the delay in this recap — and will surely mute the representation of what it was actually like.

A big part of the bummer has to come from the fact that I just flubbed it. Looking back on what the hell it was I actually accomplished with the trip, I have to say, not much. This was my first trip that I didn’t actually get to talk to Joe Biden, although more quality time with some of the staff was nice; I didn’t have either the time or the chutzpah to acquire the kind of celebrity video footage I might have hoped for; and I certainly didn’t get noticed by anyone in particular, despite what I thought was a pretty novel mobile-streaming addition to an already webbed-out event. I probably would have come to this conclusion on my own, but it was hastened by the fact that immediately upon waking — facing an ordinary Tuesday as once again a mere mortal, in a strange hotel room, with a bit of a hangover, TV beaming the face of a much more celebrate political vlogger right back in my nameless mug — a Twitter tweet thrust me toward a lackluster explanation of my general failure as citizen-journalist (though I was apparently supposed to read it as a compliment rather than coming out with guns blazing as I did).

But hey, I did get to see the inside of a spin room, interview two major CNN anchors, get more footage of my candidate, meet some awesome Charlestonians, and drink a few beers on Google’s tab. Not bad for a road trip.

Sunday night, my friend Sarah gave me the nickel tour of her favorite drinking establishments: a quality Irish pub in North Chucktown, Madra Rua, and a total dive-bar by the Citadel named Moe’s Crosstown Tavern. I talked a little shop with guys from the Biden campaign there before enjoying an Irish Car Bomb at a Polish bar and turning in for the night.

And right there might have been the crux of my dilemma: I think I fumbled the job of citizen journalism because I was always also trying to think like a Biden volunteer. Sunday night we divvied up who would be where videotaping what, and keeping a campaign itinerary in mind significantly hampered my ability to be an equal-opportunity in-your-face smartass with a camcorder. Once the debate was over I had one eye ever on the door waiting for Biden to come in so I never coughed up the chutzpah to go talk to the tall redhead we both apparently like best about Kucinich. I wasn’t interested enough in the “top tier” candidates’ focus-grouped positions to muscle my way through crowds just to hear from their surrogates. And I didn’t have time to wait for Chris Dodd. Conversely, all weekend I had one eye looking for generally applicable and amusing footage, and thus wasn’t focused enough to go up to the people we encountered and ask them what they thought of my guy. I tried to have it both ways, and shined at neither. Alas.

Outside the spin room, during the debate itself, the press hall was a rather dull experience. I sent an email out to a number of vloggers that I thought might be in attendance to see if they wanted to join me on live-stream for a little running color commentary, but I only heard back from James Kotecki, who could only reply vaguely and apologetically that he had no idea where he’d be or what he’d be doing — which I now know was the result of a gag order from YouTube to keep their importation of a handful of “top tier” political YouTubers a surprise. All those kids spent their time in the debate itself and not lingering in the press hall, and the other bloggers in the Yellow Room with me were pretty much quietly tapping away on their laptops, quite uninterested in any snark from the Peanut Gallery. (Oddly enough it was the Republican sitting next to me and the as-yet-unidentified older guy with big hair behidn me who were most inclined to contribute anything to the webcam.) I’m wholly unsurprised at this point by the lack of any reply from Jeff Jarvis, who doesn’t seem to feel the same need to engage in dialog that he expects from presidential candidates; and I don’t know what happened to the guy from TechPresident who never claimed his seat.

I was largely too busy writing, keeping up with the chat room, or tweaking the video feed settings to pay close attention to the debate, but I was generally unimpressed with the new format. It seemed like the same ol’ same ol’, just asked by a few plebeians who had been allowed into the Citadel by CNN’s big screen. The lukewarm response in my media room suggested the same general impression. And plenty of other bloggers have already pontificated on the subject, so I’ll leave it at that: color me unimpressed.

The evening’s campaign activities weren’t quite as fun as the daytime ones: Biden gave a very short (I mean shorter than some of his debate answers) speech for the firefighters’ benefit at the SCDP party on campus, and then we rushed over to the Courtyard by Marriott for a campaign after-party. That was basically face-time and signatures for the South Carolina volunteers, prefaced with stump speech material that I have already learned by heart because I like the guy for a reason: I know what he stands for and I like it. It wasn’t too long there before my unaffiliated citizen journalist side began to rear its head again and tap its imaginary wristwatch to remind me to get a-movin’ to the Google party downtown.

By contrast, Monday morning had a thoroughly informative press conference in a park complete with gigantic million-dollar Tonka toys — the new MRAP vehicles Biden has been pushing for — and some flesh-pressing with higher-up campaign staffers that I hope will be able to help me with a Biden event for the Young Dems of Atlanta. Then there was a trolley-ride through town to my favorite kind of destination — a pub — for some schmoozing with local IBEW types. I felt compelled to patronize the establishment for their troubles as they were swarmed with media of all types, and I barely had time to swill most of my Guinness before we walked up the street to another park for a lemon ice. I was walking backwards filming the Biden entourage when I realized that there was some more hubbub behind me, because lo! and behold, John Edwards wanted some photos at that particlar fountain, too. The two campaigns stayed on opposite sides of the fountain for a while, with the Biden side being louder and much more decorated (I think Edwards blew his sign load on the absolute carpet bombing of a park in front of the Citadel the afternoon before), before two rivals shook hands in advance of the competition.

The next few hours before game time were just a blur of schedule coordination, ticket pickup, wristband re-engineering, and shopping for liquor and flowers; not too much to recount there. And the Google-hosted after-party, well, that’ll earn its own video post later, I suppose.

So yeah, that’s that. And I’ve noticed lately that apparently some bloggers actually get financial support to go and bring back tribal knowledge for the community, so if you liked watching the webcam’s live-stream from the spin room (or its archived recording), feel free to put something in the tip jar to offset the kind of gas and hotel money an unemployed graduate student ain’t got lying around; I am happy, of course, to teach you what I learned about pulling such things off technologically. I know the audio quality left something to be desired — I had the levels set way too high so the general cacophony of the spin room created significant distortion in the sound — but that’s one of the lessons learned from this experimental endeavor. And frankly, there were enough of you watching who knew how to hail by via text message as I frequently requested, but no one let me know (complaining the next morning is easier), so you get out what you put in. Support blog research, and I will come share the brains!

Goodnight, Charleston. I hope to see you again soon.