Last night was insane. Starting around 3 pm, I had a dozen tabs open with official results from networks and Secretary of State websites. By 6 pm, Eric and I had two laptops and an iPhone going and the TV tuned to DirecTV's "Eight News Channels" on one screen. Because I had to leave to teach class, I had to leave the poor man with strict instructions to text me with results for my wishlist of states. By 8 pm, my man in Election Central was on half a dozen different kinds of technology, texting me, talking on his cell phone, on his landline, Skyping and watching the TV for returns, and following the widgets on CNN, Google, and MSNBC. And he was checking off states on the paper worksheet I left him.
He messaged me when Obama won Virginia, but I knew it had already happened because in the Castro District of San Francisco, people turned out onto the streets shouting and banging on pots and pans as if we were living in post-Revolution Paris.
Reaction around the world was ebullient. Former Sec. of State Colin Powell and the Rev. Jesse Jackson were reduced to tears. Frankly, I think all of us were reduced to tears.
May I just say "THANK YOU, Barack Obama!!!" for running a 50-state campaign -- so we didn't have to chew our fingers off worrying about Missouri and North Carolina. By 8:05 PST Obama had already won, and we could watch the Missouri/North Carolina results hang like a chad with perfect equanimity--as a mere academic exercise.
Missouri -- MISSOURI, we watched it down to the nub, and yet it goes on. At one point it was a difference of 534 votes. Then it was a difference of 413 votes. Thank GOD Obama ran a 50 state campaign because if I had to spend all night on North Carolina and Missouri, I'd kill myself. They still haven't officially called those two states.
Other results: Democrats picked up at least five Senate seats, Cindy Shaheen ousting John Sununu in NH, Mark Warner over Jim Gilmore in VA, Kay Hagan against Libby Dole in NC, and the Udall cousins in New Mexico and Colorado both took their seats. In Oregon, Dem Jeff Merkley vs GOP Gordon Smith is still being counted, though Smith is slightly in the lead. The Al Franken-Norm Coleman race in MN was so close it will likely go to a recount (Coleman shaved by Franken by, literally, about 700 votes). Convicted felon Ted Stevens, inexplicably prevailed, about 3,000 votes ahead of Mark Begich in AK. Mitch McConnell survived in Kentucky as did Saxby Chambliss in GA and also inexplicably, Psycho Michelle "Red Scare" Bachmann won over Elwyn Tinklenberg in the MN House district. Can't have everything.
Ballot measures were also mixed. Yes, there's now a lot of work to do:
- Anti-gay rights measures won in every state that had them on the ballot:
- Arizona ban on gay marriage (56% yes - 44% no)
- Arkansas ban on gay couples adopting (57% yes - 43% no)
- California ban on gay marriage (52% yes - 48% no)
- Florida ban on gay marriage (62% yes - 38% no)
- Anti-Choice, Pro-Life measures lost, however:
- California parental notification for minors seeking abortions (48% yes - 52% no)
- Colorado "life begins at conception" amendment (27% yes - 73% no)
- Michigan proposition to allow stem cell research (53% Yes - 47% no)
- South Dakota proposition to ban abortion (45% yes - 55% no)
- Washington proposal to allow physician assisted suicide (59% yes- 41% no)
At 8:05 (PST) as soon as the West Coast polls closed and Virginia flipped over to Obama, CNN called the race for Obama.
Before the hour was out, McCain offered perhaps his best and most honorable speech this whole damn campaign. And then, our favorite part, Our Man comes out onto the stage at Chicago's Grant Park and speaks.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
OH, Our Man is a BRILLIANT guy. From the start he's trying to head off the problems that Clinton and even Bush experienced on taking office, and he's getting down to business by stressing bi-partisanship:
Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity. Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
And already, he's saying he'll make good on the promises that got him to the White House: "Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the new White House."
