We decided we were mad. Yesterday was hot and humid, with a heat index well into triple digits and an atmosphere you could slice with a knife, yet my husband and I had volunteered to do a stint of exit-polling in the Missouri primaries, to try and identify Democratic voters.
When we arrived at our assigned polling place, there was one lone Republican woman reading a book, a stack of literature on a chair next to her and a couple of signs propped up against her chair. We thought we would be nice and say hello. She muttered something back grumpily, then went back to her book.
Polling was slow and, because of the heat and threatening thunder storms, many voters hurried into the polls and back to their cars as fast as they could, but there were a good number of Democrats who shared how on fire they were for Obama and who gladly gave their contact information. Some of them wanted to share their stories. One man had been laid off from a lucrative job and was now doing menial work, just to make ends meet. One woman was worried how she was going to pay her bills. But the common, uniting factor everyone shared was hope. Hope that Obama will be elected, and hope of a brighter future for themselves, their families and the nation. One man was so fired up by meeting some fellow Obama supporters that he immediately went to round up family members and neighbours to vote.
The storms held off until after the polls had closed and we were back home. It had been a hard three hours in temperatures that don't suit this English nature, but the thought of all those people whose enthusiasm could not be contained and whose stories just had to be told to someone who would listen made it all worthwhile. Today, we will be at the Washington Fair, hoping to meet more Missourians who have caught this infectious sense of optimism and hope after a long, long drought.
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