Election Day 2008

The day began with a knot in the pit of my stomach...

Berkeley was so covered in political posters it's shockingly festive and a big waste of paper.

I actually voted early but kept my sticker to avoid hearing everyone ask "did you vote?" "are you gonna vote?" "go vote" "vote no on this" "vote yes on that"
Dude! I did already... Ya Vote...


There is a movie theater in Oakland that always has Super-Liberal messages printed on the marquee this is what it said on election day;
I worked backstage for as long as I could, I kept returning to the computer as results came in, one state for Obama, one for McCain, electoral vote counts, hit refresh.... Obama's doing ok but I still think the Republicans own this country... finally I find that I am too much of a nervous wreak to stay any longer and head over to the election party in Oakland.  As I finally found parking John McCain began to speak on the radio... to give his... wha? 

I sat in my car rapt.  

Finally I managed to tear myself away from the radio with the thought that oh my G*d we just won... I entered my friend's house where I knew all of two people but it didn't matter.  I hugged every last stranger in the place...
A toast; To an intelligent president!  To Diplomacy! To Hope!




After dancing the electric slide in the street, we headed down to Lake Meritt, where the crowds of jubilant people were gathering. There was a lot of honking and shouting "OBAMA!"


The feeling was utter euphoria. There is No Way that the Presidency is going to live up to the hopes we all had glimmers of on election night... but after the disillusionment we've been having over Bush, racisim, the economy, our international relations, Iraq... this night was a warm relief.