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Copyright © 2010 Andrea Langworthy
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Last Monday’s chat with a high school classmate best sums up the last 10 days. “I haven’t stopped crying,” she said. I knew what she meant. I have been experiencing post-election waterworks, too. It was a long campaign. Phone calls from fundraisers and pollsters. Daily e-mails from my candidate’s camp. My husband knocked on doors many Sunday afternoons. He was an election judge, too. Now, it’s over and there’s a letdown. But still, a sense of celebration.
On our way to vote, my husband was full of stories about the enthusiastic young people he had encountered at the community center that morning. All first-time voters, he thought. At our polling place, there was no line. We signed in and took our ballots. Once inside my cubicle, I paused to savor the moment. My husband peeked around the corner to ask if I was all right. “I need to let it sink in,” I said.
We had invited a few people over to watch the returns that night. I took care of some small details while my hubby did last-minute shopping for our party. First, though, I called my friend to tell him I’d be thinking of him in the hours ahead. “If it was Hillary Clinton,” I said, “I know how I’d feel.” Race trumps gender when it comes to suppression, though, so I could only imagine what he was going through. He said when he was young, his mother had told him that he could be anything he wanted. But probably not President of the United States.
The returns came fast. By 11:00 p.m., we knew Barack Obama would be the 44th president of our country. We opened champagne and toasted the man who had achieved the improbable. When President-elect Obama and his family took the stage for his acceptance speech, the energy in Chicago’s Grant Park was palpable.
The next morning, I turned on the television to watch the cable news shows. To make sure it was still true. Again, they showed the crowds in Grant Park. Reverend Jesse Jackson, his lower lip trembling, tears streaming down his cheek. Around the world, people chanting, “O-ba-ma. O-ba-ma.” A newsperson spoke of a black man who had told him he could finally look his young son in the eye and tell him he could, indeed, grow up to be president.
Before anyone says, “See? It was about race,” I need to tell you it wasn’t. Senator Obama’s lineage faded into the background as his message was heard by people who opened their ears and listened. In the face of the country’s financial collapse and attacks on his character, his steadiness and chief-of-staff demeanor impressed doubters. Life-long Republicans voted for a Democrat for the first time in their lives. A friend of ours, like his father before him, had always voted the GOP ticket but he said this election would be different. He and his wife volunteered at a DFL call center.
If it wasn’t about race, then what? Hope. It was about hope. And change. I see it already in people’s faces. Those who aren’t crying tears of joy are smiling. Smiling at each other because now, as President-elect Obama told us, the election is over and it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Side-by-side. Shoulder to shoulder.
Partners.