November 4th: Up at 4:30AM in the Gloucester C.H. campaign office just after 6:00AM. As per usual, JP and Kim and steady at the Helm in the C.H. Office. The weather is cool with a soaking rain falling, forecast to continue most of the day. Driving by the Gloucester High School, I saw large crowds at the poll with similar scenes at the two C.H. polls as well... this is good! The day was a blur; to summarize, I put 150 miles on my vehicle on Election Day, driving from the Piankatank to the York, and the Ware to King and Queen County, visiting 90 doors and placing door hangers as reminders early on and knocking on doors by the end of the day to encourage late voters. The day on the Gloucester campaign circuit ended as it started, in the dark and rain and back at the Gloucester C.H. office with JP and Kim. This day was not about finding or educating voters, it was about making all the hard work we have done over these past months pay off by getting our voters to the polls.
I went back to my house at 7:00PM after the polls closed, picked up Willy (my Corgi dog) and we went off to the Gloucester Point Campaign HQ to watch the election results together with all the Gloucester volunteers. The scene at the HQ was a bit slow at first, with about 20 people sitting around watching the election results trickle in on MSNBC. Willy made friends with the other dog in the audience, Steve’s 3-legged mutt. Willy also socialized with the 2-legged people, easily moving amongst group as his short size allowed him was to walk under the chairs, stopping to sniff the food and drinks placed on the ground and get stroked by all the 20-something women who loved how fluffy Willy’s fur is. Willy is such a flirt.
The night was initially tense, with returns for Virginia showing McCain ahead. It was said that one of the paths to victory was for Obama to win both Virginia and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the call for Virginia would come after 11:00PM. Our spirits were buoyed when we learned that Obama had won both PA and Ohio. I was certain that with theses two states in the bank, Obama would almost certainly win the election. As the clock approached 11PM, MSNBC said they would have some big announcements to make at the top of the hour. With 99% of the vote counted in Virginia and Obama pulling ahead of McCain as the votes were counted from the cities, we hoped that the pundits would call VA for Obama. Instead, MSNBC called the election for President Elect Barack Obama and we all went wild.
For me, the moment of the announcement was not pure joy, but rather serine happiness in the knowing that, with all our hard work, the nation would finally be governed by a competent and intelligent leader. As a white man, I can only imagine that rapturous feelings my African-American friends must have with Obama’s victory. Barack Obama rise to the Presidency of the United States is the summation of effort on the behalf of thousands of heroes over hundreds of years. On the historic election day of 2008, America practiced what it preaches, demonstrating to the world our values and principles.
Long after the declaration Obama’s historic win, we learned that Virginia had went the way of the nation in voting for Obama. Virginia has not voted for a Democrat since 1964, 44 years ago. This was not an accident; rather the win is the result of the tireless efforts of thousands of volunteers. This effort was unfortunately not a result of changing the minds of card-carrying Republicans (who increasingly seem oblivious to reality), but by registering new voters in huge numbers and welcoming these new voters into the Democratic Party. Proof that these new voters made a difference is shown in the election results. In 2008, about 300,000 new voters were registered; the 2008 election results show almost all these new voters choose Obama as their next President thereby increasing the number of people voting for the Democratic candidate by 393,000 votes. Conversely, those voting for the Republican candidate in 2004 and 2008 remained nearly the same.
Virginia election results:
Dem Repub 2004 1,400,254 (45%) 1,667,198 (54%) 2008 1,793,671 (52%) 1,639,421 (47%)
Presidential Voting in Gloucester County, Virginia
Dem Repub 2004 5,105 (31%) 11,084 (68%) 2008 6,742 (36%) 11,737 (63%)
Registered voters in Gloucester County: 2004 21,900 2008 25,000 (74% of these voted in the 2008 election!)
While we did not get the majority of votes for Obama in Gloucester County, we did our part to deny McCain the opportunity to run up the score here. Like Virginia, our newly registered Gloucester County voters largely made a difference in narrowing the gap Republicans held over the county by 10%. However, our efforts are not fully captured in the voter statistics. By confronting the Republicans, encouraged healthy debate on the nation’s priorities, and challenged them to consider why they vote Republican. It is my hope that the spirited level of debate continues and we are (one day) able to work to form consensus rather than continuing the language of division.
This is my final post to the MyBO blog. Thank you for the wonderful experience of being part of this campaign and the friendship of BJ, JP, Emily, Diane, Kim, Joe, Maury, Brad, Keisha in Gloucester. God Bless you all, Barack Obama, and America.
Comments are closed for this post.
