Saturday, November 22, 2008

The Brown Team Party

What glory is this and can there be more tomorrow?

Last night I sat down to dinner and conversation with my team mates from the Obama presidential campaign. We delivered the votes from our area in more than expected amounts. We regaled at the sight of the young people who were going to be enthusiastic , but according to the cynics, in the end, were not going vote. The polls showing Obama ahead, they would decide to stay home and text each other. They voted in record numbers all across the country.

One ward in the city recorded thousands of votes for Obama and one vote for McCain. The total was double the number of votes ever recorded in that ward. We talked about the numbers of first time voters and the people who admitted they had never volunteered for a campaign before.

We talked about the so called "grab and drag" tactic of going to supporters homes on election day and almost forcing them to the polls. In truth, this didn't happen very often. Indeed, traffic at the polls was lighter than we thought it was going to be because people had voted absentee in such great numbers.

We talked about how long the campaign was. Some had started working in the cold of winter to assure victory in the primary. As a result, many had been working on the campaign for almost a year.

We were happy bunch. The number of hectic hours, the crush of tasks in the last four days of the Get Out The Vote campaign and the poll watching were complete and out of the way. Victory, sweet victory was ours. We exchanged stories about Palin and reflected on the cabinet and leadership selections. The group talked about the moment that the feeling of success sunk in. Some said it was Barak striding onto the stage at Grant Park. Others mentioned seeing Jesse Jackson shedding tears as he waited for Barak to give his acceptance speech. Still others remembered the moment the television screen flashed the news that the West coast polls had closed and the networks declared Barak the winner, the 44Th President of the United States. We were, in the tradition of the campaign, "telling our story".

But no one was smug. Most of us knew that this was not an ending, but instead it was the beginning. No one gives up power. Already, we had all heard on the news of the conservatives scrambling to recover their dead and wounded so they could retreat from the field only to reorganize and return. Yes, it was time to celebrate, but we left on the sobering thought that indeed this was a battle won, but the war continues.