What Kind of Week Has It Been?

This has been an incredibly exciting week for the United States and the world at large. Like so many others, I’ve decided I need to get my thoughts on what just happened down. Having been awakening to the political process in 2000, newly active in 2004, this was my first presidential election since I’ve turned 18.

Truth be told, I was feeling pretty good going into election day. The last few weeks I had started to believe the numbers at FiveThirtyEight and was fairly sure we’d win. I wagered that Obama would take 375 Electoral Votes, winning swing states NC, IN, MO, VA, PA, OH, FL and CO. I also somewhat secretly expected one big upset: ND, MT, GA, or AZ. I heard the calls not to become complacent but having worked on several losing elections I felt like I needed to avoid the absurd stress levels that accompany the final week of any campaign.

Tuesday I sat at my desk, like everyone else I was barely able to work, keeping an eye on election websites despite my knowledge that nothing would start to appear until 7pm. My mind raced back to the three days that I had felt this way before.

I had been reluctant to publicly support a candidate so early in the primaries in part due to my leadership position in the College Democrats. On January 3rd of this year however one of the candidates that I had a tremendous amount of respect for and imagined as Hillary’s likely VP choice had shown that he could organize a campaign and beat not only the inevitable Hillary Clinton, but also 2004 VP candidate John Edwards. Due to my state of birth and the state I was living in at the time I was assumed to support one of those two, but starting that night in January I saw that there was a chance that a man as unlikely as Barack Obama could win the nomination.

I was also distracted by thoughts of four years ago, the election that marked my first real involvement in a campaign, when I went from joining the grassroots NC For Dean group despite not being of voting age, and then after going to college helped revive the campus College Democrats and campaign for John Kerry. By November 2nd, young and naive, I was sure that the nation would reject George W. Bush and his joke of a presidency. November 2nd 2004 was also the day before my 18th birthday, a single day shy of voting, not that it would have swung either of the states I could have been registered in, but it made for a hell of an 18th birthday. Would the day after my 22nd birthday be just as disappointing?

The third day on my mind was the result of the biggest fear I had, that the election would be stolen. In 2000, I, like much of the nation was glued to the TV through election night and ensuing weeks, watching the recount take place. Recently having become politically aware, I was distraught at the idea of a stolen election, and it seemed plain to me that I was witnessing just that. Would desperation and fear within the Republican party lead to more attempts to subvert the democratic process?

Fortunately, early in the evening it was clear if they were going to steal it they would have to make it obvious, Pennsylvania and Ohio looked great, Virginia and Florida looked pretty good too, Kay Hagan was en route to unseating Liddy Dole which said good things about North Carolina. It was apparent by the numbers that as soon as the west coast polls closed an Obama victory would be certain. By 11pm it was clear that we were going to hear from President-Elect Barack Obama.

President-Elect Barack Obama.

Obviously this wasn’t the only election of the evening. As I mentioned Kay Hagan beat Elizabeth Dole in a race that mattered nearly as much to me on a personal level. I was remarkably proud of my state rejecting Dole’s fearmongering ads and politics of hate to elect Kay Hagan, as well as the fact that North Carolina voters chose Barack Obama after being a solid red state for so long. I was also proud to see Pennsylvania and Virginia go for Obama, two states I along with good friends of mine had volunteered in. In a strange way the race I cared about most of all was the NY 29th, where Eric Massa, a man I’ve had the pleasure to spend a bit of time with, defeated incumbent Randy Kuhl correcting one of the biggest disappointments of the 2006 cycle. I had swore to friends in that district that it would be my adopted district as long as I lived in DC without real representation. So in some way I got a new president and a new congressman on November 4th. I thank and congratulate all of my friends, and the country as a whole on what was achieved on Tuesday, and I hope that we will not forget that winning an election is the beginning — not the end. We have won, it is time to start healing the wounds our nation has suffered throughout the better part of my life. For those elections where we lost, most notably California’s Proposition 8, we must and will continue the fight and not let our victory rob us of the fighter’s spirit cultivated by the outrages of the last eight years.

The mood on the streets tuesday night in DC and other cities around the nation should carry us forward, the spontaneous peaceful rally I was so fortunate to be a part of in front of the White House should set the tone for how we as a nation are now reclaiming our civic duties and patriotism.

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