Had Robert E. Lee left Virginia a day earlier and George Meade left Washington, D.C., a day later, their armies would not have tripped over each other at Gettysburg, but rather some other crossroads 40 miles to the south.

(One can only speculate if generations of school children would be equally inspired to memorize Abraham Lincoln's "Buckeystown Address.")

Yet Gettysburg is indeed where they met, and very soon an unprepared populace watched in horror as their gentle meadows became blood-soaked killing fields and their pristine homes became blood-soaked triages.

When behemoths collide, Gettysburg learned, the ground loses.

The race for the 48th Senate District is now over, but four months from now, it's doubtful Gov. Eliot Spitzer will travel here to take stock of what happened, lo these past two months. He will certainly not wax philosophically that, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced."

Those who did fight here, the hacks and hatchet men of the state Democrat and Republican parties, are off to another crossroads, their bloody work finished here.

They came, they saw, they connived. They spent $2 million in a shell game of deceit in which they lied about each other's candidate and treated voters like rubes and country bumpkins rather than the geographic descendants of Remington, Dewey, Woolworth, Lansing, Dulles and Rogers, the shapers of modern America.

A pox on all their houses!

The public usually gets the government it deserves, but not this time. Nobody in the 48th Senate District asked opponents Darrel Aubertine, a former farmer, and Will Barclay, a current lawyer, to sell their souls to Gotham and Albany political machines in return for relentless fliers, phone calls and TV commercials grinding each other's words and votes into unrecognizable hash.

Let me see if I have this straight: Aubertine supported giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens so they could drive to the north country and milk our cows; and Barclay tried to outsource our jobs so those same illegal aliens would stay put.

How did it all happen?

Former Sen. Jim Wright unleashed the whirlwind when he just upped and quit in December.

After years of remarkable constituent service (his victory against most of the state to locally keep half of the power produced at the Moses Saunders Dam is near statue-worthy), Wright left his post with a sour taste in his mouth for the politics in Albany. But knowing Democrats have been lusting to gain one more Senate seat, Wright pulled the plug in a way that would give a running start to the GOP's heir apparent, Oswego County's Will Barclay, son of Republican icon and former U.S. Ambassador Doug Barclay.

But speed kills. Instead of a running start, the move became the first of many missteps for Barclay, who really needed six months of pressing the flesh in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, where he has few personal contacts.

Meanwhile, Aubertine, with insider information on when Spitzer would call for a special election, took his time to declare his candidacy, all the while allowing the state Democratic Party to use the Christmas holidays to prepare its own version of the three gifts of the magi: gold, gold and gold.

Aubertine's "One of Us" campaign was a master stroke, and preferred by the populace to, well, whatever Barclay's campaign was about.

Yet, the Aubertine campaign itself was not from here, just like his previous campaigns. Nobody from the north country has benefited more than Aubertine from the clash of parties in Albany ("We'll draw him an Assembly district!"), and it should be noted that when you see him in a commercial riding a circa-1960s tractor, the fuel, backlighting and graphics were funded by folks more accustomed to being ferried about the theater district in chauffeured limousines.

Because Aubertine smiles more than talks and seldom outdebates an opponent, it's easy to dismiss his abilities and suggest that greatness has been thrust upon him for no apparent reason.

But voters like the guy. He is seen as honest, with no hidden agendas and a politician who shows up to work every day. And they don't see his ascent as driven by manifest destiny or DNA, which is the vibe that will always be given off by Barclay.

Collectively, this gives Aubertine one major intangible: As noted by one political observer a few years ago, opponents who attack Aubertine come off looking like they are kicking a puppy.

That on-the-ground knowledge about Aubertine never made it to the Albany sinkhole where the state GOP lobbed its stink bombs in support of Barclay. Narrators in Barclay commercials always sounded either patronizing ("Heck, Will even graduated from St. Lawrence University") or lecturing, hectoring or fear-mongering about how the end of the world was coming if Aubertine won the election.

Barclay couldn't even make hay when the Aubertine camp was caught in the biggest lie of the campaign — the famous "My grandfather used to take me fishing on the Salmon River" commercial.

Barclay should have allowed the media to complete their demolition of the ad. Instead, during a debate at Jefferson Community College he demanded Aubertine apologize to his family. The response was a chorus of boos from the audience, who suddenly saw before them a whiny rich kid, not somebody prepared to roll up his sleeves to go to work for them in Albany.

Party people will contend their candidate was the honorable one during the past two months, and thus the lie will continue. The truth is that both parties thought the way to our hearts was through our bile.

And an additional truth is this: had Wright stayed on until the fall, Democrats would have still nominated Assemblyman Darrel Aubertine while the Republicans would have been locked in a coffer-draining, time-consuming primary in which Assemblyman Will Barclay would lose.

But it would have been worth it in the end for the GOP when Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava of Gouverneur was elected senator of the 48th District.

And the rancor we just endured would have never happened, because, as any country bumpkin will tell you, momma wouldna put up with dat mess.

Bob Gorman is managing editor of the Times.