We’re all in this together. So far we’ve had election day comments from Virginia, Colorado, Arizona and D.C. I know there are regular readers in Maryland, Delaware, New York, Michigan, Texas, California, Oregon, Kentucky, Indiana — oh, and New Mexico.
Reactions, predictions, feelings, fears, experiences, emotions — anyone?
Elsewhere, Josh Marshall has set up a site for Sharing Your Experiences …. Here’s one:
My polling place is at the fairgrounds in Southern Maryland, about 40 minutes from Washington, D.C. This used to be tobacco country, but is slowly being developed, or other crops are grown. We waited until 10:00 to vote, to avoid the lines. When we got there a 97-year-old Black man was being wheeled out of the polls in his wheelchair. It was the first time he had ever voted in his life. When he came outside he asked if anyone could give him an Obama button. There were none left at the Democrat’s booth so I gave him mine. He was so proud and I started crying. He looked at me and said, “why are you crying? this is a day for glory.” I am still crying.
NewMexiKen remembers going to a World Series game in Oakland 36 years ago with my friend and neighbor Daniel. Daniel was African-American. We needed to buy tickets and finally found a guy with two. He was incredulous that Daniel and I actually wanted seats together. I wonder where that man is today.
I believe if Iowa hadn’t given Barack Obama his jump start it would have happened somewhere else. The country was too hungry for what he symbolizes. BUT, I am so proud that it began here. Knocking on doors in sub-zero weather last year, giving the speech for Obama at our caucus; these are memories I will treasure. And never before have I felt the right, so strongly, to demand that the President make moral decisions when he is acting on my behalf. I guess this is what it feels like to participate in a a democracy.
Many years ago, 1977 to be exact, I was the director of a Bureau of Reclamation Youth Conservation Corps camp in Central Arizona. Half of our residential 50-member camp (16-18 year old boys and girls) was made up of Native Americans. The YCC had a dress code (for safety reasons) during work hours that required long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and boots. One impoverished young member, a Pima Indian named Angel, didn’t have the necessary items, so I took him to Casa Grande to buy them. As we walked through the parking lot from the car to the store, he was walking well behind me and I asked him why. The answer was that he didn’t think that I, a 25-year old white woman, would want to be seen walking with him. I assured him that was not the case, and convinced him I was being honest by revealing to him that my significant other at the time was also a Native American.
It’s not just the Blacks of our nation who can finally believe that, at last, their potential can be realized. Now all the Angels can, too.
I waited in line in a small town in PA for about two hours yesterday in order to vote, about 15 minutes of it was in the rain and of course I had not packed an umbrella.
In a completely random turn of events, Sigourney Weaver showed up at the polls while I was there. To my knowledge, she isn’t local but had filmed a movie in our area. She thanked those of us waiting in line for exercising our right to vote and tapped on her Obama for president button. (She is absolutely gorgeous in person and was very gracious during the half hour or so she spent chatting with those of us in line.)
I was literally surrounded by several local Republican party activists while in line so my hopes for Obama taking PA were not high when I went home. I was jubilant when I saw the PA results last night.
Today, I am so very proud to be an American. I have never before felt such pride and joy in my country nor have I appreciated the promise that it holds. This is the America I believe in and one of the things I will be celebrating at Thanksgiving is living in a country where these things not only are possible, but actually happen.