On a Saturday afternoon in early September, N and I were watching Obama’s DNC speech on YouTube (yes, we were a bit behind schedule, but cut us some slack—we were living in France at the time). It was the same afternoon N was embarking on a crazy, tri-continental business trip that would also take him to SF, where he would have his final interview for the job that ultimately lured us back to the States. In the middle of Barack’s address, I said, “Imagine if this opportunity works out for you and we make it back to San Francisco in time for the election…and he wins.” We both agreed it would be a beautiful thing to share in the celebrations, as we spent the past two election port-mortems trudging through a very funereal SF.
I’d been such a nervous wreck in all the months, weeks, days leading up to November 4. Yet strangely when I woke up yesterday, I just felt in my gut that Obama was going to win. I somehow avoided checking the news all day (a defense-mechanism at work to keep me calm, no doubt), until my mom called at 5pm to update me on what had already transpired: CT, NJ, ME, VT, DC, many of the usual Northeast suspects had gone blue. Then I got on the Internet and saw that Obama had won PA. Holy East Coast, it was happening! Mom and I screamed excitedly, my heart started racing, and it never stopped for the rest of the evening. Thank goodness my friend was hosting an election watch party, as the group-therapy atmosphere / added stimulation prevented me from pacing in circles around our small temporary apartment.
When the networks and online pubs started to call it, I was suspicious. Huffington Post had “President-Elect Obama” on their home page as early as 7pm PST. MSNBC had been touting 200+ electoral votes for over an hour and it just seemed too early. West Coast polls had barely closed. The NYT had been conservative in its estimates all night; they weren’t calling it yet, and so I couldn’t believe. But then I had a strange thought—what was Fox News saying? I proceeded to their site, saw “President Obama” splashed across the home page, and that’s when I gave into the wave of elation.
WOW, AMERICA!!!!
McCain gave the most inspired speech of his campaign. Barack’s—and the ten-ton reality of what had just transpired—made me cry. Among many others, I loved his comment that the change we seek doesn’t lie in his getting elected; rather, we now have the chance to make that change happen. Indeed. The road ahead will be long and difficult, but we’re more united than ever to make good on the hope and promise that brought us to this historic moment. And Barack is making good on one promise right away—the Obama girls are getting a puppy, and thus all is right in the world.
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of “Yes we can…yes we did!” reverberating from coast to coast, from continent to continent as the world rejoices with us. It would have been fascinating to view this event through the eyes of the French, but I’m thrilled to be in the U.S. to experience this firsthand. And while I miss Paris, I’m glad I don’t have to high-tail it back there to hide out for four more years.
And one last thing—I love Tina Fey and I am happy that she has her “little comedy show” to attend to, because her calendar officially got lighter as of about 8:20pm PST last night.
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
05 November 2008
30 October 2008
Baracking the Vote
Spending an election year abroad is a strange thing. What’s even stranger is coming back two weeks before the election, essentially diving right into the fray.
On the surface, my world isn’t much different. Much like in San Francisco, Obama is the Complete Rock Star in Europe, bigger than Michael Jackson, bigger than the Beatles, bigger than (dare I say it) Jesus. You’ve seen the pictures of the enormous crowd attending Obama’s speech in Berlin. Perhaps you’ve seen the Economist’s global electoral map—if only the world could vote! To the French, Obama truly symbolizes hope. Many people confessed that for France’s foreseeable future, there’s no way a black man could make it so far in politics. Although the French have conflicted feelings about the American Dream, they can at least cut past their suspicion of capitalism to acknowledge that America truly is the Land of Possibility, in ways that reach far beyond the marketplace.
Bolstering the French fervor over Obama was the relative lack of knowledge of his opponent. “McCain who?” was rolling off every Parisian’s lips—including the media’s. I spent countless hours elaborating on the GOP hopeful to my English students, dispelling the overgeneralization that he's GWB #2 and arguing that although he wouldn’t be getting my vote, he wasn’t all that bad (well, that was until he announced his unfortunate choice of a running mate, the economy imploded, and the McCain campaign went haywire).
I talked about the election constantly—on a daily basis, in fact—with my students and with French and expat friends. I obsessed over the news coverage, my anxiety building. It wasn’t as bad as Larry David’s, but at one point my husband asked me to stop talking about the election with him, as his vote was already decided and my constant chatter was stressing him the hell out. What would happen to our collective anxiety once we moved back to the States in late October?
Well, here we now are, in one of the liberal, elite capitals of America—not “real America,” in the eyes of a certain Veep candidate—and the Obamania is palpable. SF is plastered in Obama posters and it all amounts to preaching to the converted, but it also gets one’s spirits up. I realized the other day that I don’t think I’ve seen a McCain sticker, poster, T-shirt, anything—ever. If I lived in a battleground state, the Obama button I’m sporting on my purse would make more of a statement, but I might be subject to vandalism a la Peter Frampton, or worse—fall victim to a faux robbery attempt. (This election keeps getting weirder and weirder.)
I’m one of those Dems who refuses to give into the power of positive thinking, buoyed as it may be by the imperfect science of pollsters. There’s too much at stake to rest on those laurels. While all the Tina Fey-induced catharsis has helped, the anxiety has definitely been increasing. It’s seeping into my dreams. So I decided to do something, given that I have more free time on my hands: I’m volunteering for the campaign, spending hours at the phone bank.
During the shifts I’ve worked, the volunteers were given the softball assignments of calling people in SF who expressed interest in volunteering for the campaign, and of calling absentee-ballot voters in OH who already pledged support for Obama (“Don’t forget to mail your ballot today!”). No arguing with angry Republicans, no strained conversations with those who believe Barack is a terrorist, no waxing poetic to the undecideds. And though it’s been like shooting fish in a barrel, the experience has provided me with moments—just a handful of small moments—that make me so glad to be back in America during these last crucial days:
- The 84-year-old man who adorably responded, “My, yes, dearie” when I asked him if he’d already sent off his ballot, and followed it with, “If those two [McCain and Palin] make it into the White House, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
- The elderly woman who told me that her sister had never voted in her life and was now casting her first ever ballot.
- The man in San Francisco who was worried that because he wasn’t a citizen, he wouldn’t be able to help the campaign’s volunteer efforts. When I told him that anyone could help, he exclaimed enthusiastically, “Anything for Barack! Anything!”
- Looking around the phone bank, smiling at the people around me, and feeling inspired by the community rallying around this important common cause. I’m proud of all the passion this election has inspired and how it’s drawn out record numbers of voter registrations. Even if the election results are not the ones I personally want, and despite all the usual BS and newfound levels of crazy seen this year, I’m still heartened by the energy and interest in the political process this election has evoked.
My husband has long since abandoned his ostrich-like resistance to election chatter—it’s impossible to hide from it. And we’ll both be at the phone bank, quelling our anxiety in small bursts before the Big Day arrives.
On the surface, my world isn’t much different. Much like in San Francisco, Obama is the Complete Rock Star in Europe, bigger than Michael Jackson, bigger than the Beatles, bigger than (dare I say it) Jesus. You’ve seen the pictures of the enormous crowd attending Obama’s speech in Berlin. Perhaps you’ve seen the Economist’s global electoral map—if only the world could vote! To the French, Obama truly symbolizes hope. Many people confessed that for France’s foreseeable future, there’s no way a black man could make it so far in politics. Although the French have conflicted feelings about the American Dream, they can at least cut past their suspicion of capitalism to acknowledge that America truly is the Land of Possibility, in ways that reach far beyond the marketplace.
Bolstering the French fervor over Obama was the relative lack of knowledge of his opponent. “McCain who?” was rolling off every Parisian’s lips—including the media’s. I spent countless hours elaborating on the GOP hopeful to my English students, dispelling the overgeneralization that he's GWB #2 and arguing that although he wouldn’t be getting my vote, he wasn’t all that bad (well, that was until he announced his unfortunate choice of a running mate, the economy imploded, and the McCain campaign went haywire).
I talked about the election constantly—on a daily basis, in fact—with my students and with French and expat friends. I obsessed over the news coverage, my anxiety building. It wasn’t as bad as Larry David’s, but at one point my husband asked me to stop talking about the election with him, as his vote was already decided and my constant chatter was stressing him the hell out. What would happen to our collective anxiety once we moved back to the States in late October?
Well, here we now are, in one of the liberal, elite capitals of America—not “real America,” in the eyes of a certain Veep candidate—and the Obamania is palpable. SF is plastered in Obama posters and it all amounts to preaching to the converted, but it also gets one’s spirits up. I realized the other day that I don’t think I’ve seen a McCain sticker, poster, T-shirt, anything—ever. If I lived in a battleground state, the Obama button I’m sporting on my purse would make more of a statement, but I might be subject to vandalism a la Peter Frampton, or worse—fall victim to a faux robbery attempt. (This election keeps getting weirder and weirder.)
I’m one of those Dems who refuses to give into the power of positive thinking, buoyed as it may be by the imperfect science of pollsters. There’s too much at stake to rest on those laurels. While all the Tina Fey-induced catharsis has helped, the anxiety has definitely been increasing. It’s seeping into my dreams. So I decided to do something, given that I have more free time on my hands: I’m volunteering for the campaign, spending hours at the phone bank.
During the shifts I’ve worked, the volunteers were given the softball assignments of calling people in SF who expressed interest in volunteering for the campaign, and of calling absentee-ballot voters in OH who already pledged support for Obama (“Don’t forget to mail your ballot today!”). No arguing with angry Republicans, no strained conversations with those who believe Barack is a terrorist, no waxing poetic to the undecideds. And though it’s been like shooting fish in a barrel, the experience has provided me with moments—just a handful of small moments—that make me so glad to be back in America during these last crucial days:
- The 84-year-old man who adorably responded, “My, yes, dearie” when I asked him if he’d already sent off his ballot, and followed it with, “If those two [McCain and Palin] make it into the White House, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
- The elderly woman who told me that her sister had never voted in her life and was now casting her first ever ballot.
- The man in San Francisco who was worried that because he wasn’t a citizen, he wouldn’t be able to help the campaign’s volunteer efforts. When I told him that anyone could help, he exclaimed enthusiastically, “Anything for Barack! Anything!”
- Looking around the phone bank, smiling at the people around me, and feeling inspired by the community rallying around this important common cause. I’m proud of all the passion this election has inspired and how it’s drawn out record numbers of voter registrations. Even if the election results are not the ones I personally want, and despite all the usual BS and newfound levels of crazy seen this year, I’m still heartened by the energy and interest in the political process this election has evoked.
My husband has long since abandoned his ostrich-like resistance to election chatter—it’s impossible to hide from it. And we’ll both be at the phone bank, quelling our anxiety in small bursts before the Big Day arrives.
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