It has taken me 36 hours to come to grips with winning the election. Isn’t this something? I can’t get over how excited people are to see Barack Obama elected. When have you ever seen thousands of people dancing in the streets to celebrate the election of a politician? People feel like they have a stake again. There’s a sense of hope that’s been missing from the politics of fear for the last 8 years.
On a county level, there were 110,000 votes cast which translates into a record 80% turnout. Unfortunately Obama lost the county by 770 votes. On a statewide level, McCain won by about 6,000 votes. Because there’s only a 0.2% difference between the two candidates, provisional and overseas ballots will be counted before determining the final outcome. I believe there are only about 7,100 outstanding ballots so I don’t expect Obama to carry Missouri. Still, we moved the state much closer to the blue column for next time.
The long lines at the polls never materialized in our county, even with the high turnout. That says a lot for how well the local election board prepared and for the staff they had available. I think the longest wait was a little more than an hour and most of the polls were able to close promptly at 7 pm. One of our poll watchers reported that his poll was so quiet at 6:45 pm that a 10-point buck walked passed him through the parking lot.
Our team worked well together for the 4-day GOTV effort. We could have used more canvassers, especially on Election Day itself, but we managed. The delay in obtaining a staging location handicapped us a little but I don’t think it made a substantial difference. We had a lot of fun along with all the work. I lost 5 pounds over the GOTV period but I wouldn’t recommend it as a diet technique.
I thought John McCain showed more class during his concession speech than he did during the whole campaign. I wonder if he’s secretly relieved not to have to solve the financial crisis. On the other hand, Sarah Palin wasted too much time in departing for Alaska and showed very little class in distancing herself from “John’s defeat”. Hello? Weren’t you defeated too?
Yesterday Jack and I went out to breakfast and snagged copies of the New York Times and USA Today to read all the election coverage. Then I mostly napped for the rest of the day.
Today I’ve been cleaning up all the piles that have accumulated around the house. My friend E is out of town for several days so I’m taking her 7-month-old puppy for walks every day. It’s like being attached to a whirlwind by a leash. I’m also cat-sitting for some neighbors who are traveling. All the houseplants need to be moved to their winter homes since we’re expecting our first heavy freeze this week.. And our kitchen TV crapped out after 15 years so we’re going shopping for a spiffy new one – yah! I picked up my knitting last night for the first time in 10 days.
Life is back to normal.
