Election night was quite nice. I come home and Rick is positioned in front of the TV with CNN (obviously, cause no other station has Campbell Brown and David Gergen), which was a strange sight considering he's usually asleep when I get home.
I plop myself down, grab Rick's hand and wait for the returns to roll in. Ok, so it wasn't as dramatic as that, and as everyone knows, waiting for returns to come in can be as boring as watching paint dry, and then sitting back and deciding you just LOVE this new color (like what happened on Tuesday), or realizing you've just totally changed the room into this hideous new thing that doesn't agree with any of your social values (2000 & 2004). Yeah. Moving on.
The very first returns made me just the slightest bit nervous. They projected a couple of states McCain was supposed to win, and he seemed neck and neck with Barack in several other states, with McCain slightly leading. Of John King, at his beloved Magic Map, kept saying that the urban, democratic areas had yet to be reported, but I was poised for the worst, given the outcomes of the last two elections that I was just sure would go to the Democrats. Well, they started calling more and more states for Obama and then he began leading in several key states. Of course the major turning point was when they called Pennsylvania for Obama. There is a bar just below our building with a back patio which we can hear very clearly now that there is a huge building shadowing it and reflecting all the noise up the side of it. Every time a state was projected for Obama, a huge roar would go up that seemed to shake the whole building, and there was no doubt we were living in good ole liberal Brooklyn. Soon after, Ohio was called for Obama, and although they couldn't call it yet, everyone started talking about the implications of Obama winning. As we all know, at 11 PM EST, they called the race and proclaimed Obama as President Elect. It was a wonderful moment, and Rick leaned over, said "this is good for us, baby" and kissed me. I could literally feel a weight lifting off my shoulders; a lightening. We popped a bottle of champagne and toasted to No More Bush, to Democratic, liberal leadership, and to the first African American elected President.
Of course people had been hooting and hollering the entire time outside and honking horns going down Atlantic Ave. This continued throughout the night even to the point where Rick had to get up because he couldn't fall asleep due to all the noise. He may have been a little excited, too. Now, I was a Hillary supporter and slowly warmed up to Obama as the race wore on. While I don't have the frothing-mouth, fanatical love for Obama as many people I know do, I have to say he has given me something that no other politician has ever given me: hope. Yes, just as he promised, just as he campaigned on. I knew it exactly the moment it happened, the next day. I was crossing the street and thinking about Grad school and applications and projecting what my future might be like depending on what school I go to. And then I realized that no matter where I went to school, Barack Obama would be President while I was going there. Not George Bush, not John McCain, not Sarah Palin or some other asshole who thinks of me as a second class citizen because I love another man. No it would be Obama and I actually felt a surge of happiness and above all, hope. It felt amazing. Here's the the future, O, let's make it a good one.
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