November 4, 2008
Tuesday

Most people who will read this piece within a short time of its posting will know what happened today. Many who might read it years from now will perhaps make a connection with the date, or understand the allusion in the title, but even if they don’t, when they get to the next sentence, they will know that they are reading an eyewitness account of an important event. Because on this day Barack Obama was elected over John McCain to become the forty-fourth president of the United States of America. I was but one of the more than 62 million people who pulled a lever, touched a screen, or checked a box on a paper ballot to indicate our will in this matter.

Ron and I arrived at our polling place at about 9:15. The air was seasonably cool but not chilly, although it was overcast and those of us sensitive to atmospheric moisture could feel a period of precipitation building. We vote in the community center of an apartment complex built for elderly and handicapped residents. The lobby is small and even in the least interesting off-year elections a short line forms. This line went out the door and down the lane to the first intersection. We fell in between a smartly-dressed woman in her late thirties and a couple somewhat older than we who had their school-age granddaughter with them. (Local schools were closed because so many of them are used as polling places.)

We moved along together in friendly conversation about our voting histories, the weather, the township trash service, the future of a choice corner property that, for now, is still in rolling acres of grass and grain. We were in line an hour, and Ron would remark later that even though we were all there for the same important purpose, we couldn’t tell you how any of those around us were going to vote.

My vote might have taken two seconds tops. All I had to do was press the “straight Democratic” panel at the top of the screen and the bar at the bottom that records the vote. (Oh, and yes or no on a referendum about clean water. I had a robocall from Ed Rendell, the governor I love to hate, about that yesterday. Who would vote against clean water?) But I hesitated, feeling suddenly the weight of history. I touched Judy Hirsh’s name lightly, then Joe Biden’s, and finally Barack Obama’s. I took a deep breath then, pressed all the right places, and heard the little bell ring that signaled I had completed the process.

Ron and I went out to breakfast then, and in the afternoon I served a few hours as a poll worker for Judy. That means I believed so strongly in her candidacy that I became one of those annoying people who stand a prescribed distance away from the door to the polling place and thrust a candidate’s literature at people who surely have made up their minds by now. The polling place I was assigned was fairly quiet — no line, just a steady stream of individuals. The worst part was having to stand near a McCain worker who had a radio tuned to Rush Limbaugh’s program. I’d never heard more than a snippet of that person’s product, and it took me less than a minute to understand why I would never seek to hear any more. The other poll worker was a man who was working for the Democratic candidate for treasurer. He had the candidate’s t-shirt on and a handful of brochures. “Vote for McCormick for state treasurer!” he said to each voter who passed by. After about fifty times I emboldened myself to say, “Excuse me, but I think your candidate’s name is McCord.” (McCord won with almost 60% of the vote, so I guess no harm was done.)

This evening we alternated coverage of the election on MSNBC with portions of the Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash we’d recorded last night, and at 10:00 went to the regular episode of The Shield. Barack Obama was leading when I went upstairs to my study, and by the time I turned on my TV and roused my computer from sleep, he was declared the winner.

“Yes we did!” I texted to a friend.

“Hell yeah!” came the reply. Then I switched to the local news. “Holy shit! Judy’s upsetting Piccola 51 to 49!” I tapped in with my thumbs. I hit Send, and before the “message delivered” screen appeared, the numbers changed. A remote area of northern York county delivered for Piccola, and he survived this very serious challenge by less than 5,000 votes.

So I’m feeling a mixture of elation and disappointment. And I have to say the elation is so strong that it is pushing everything else aside. I went back downstairs to watch the victory speech on our big high definition flat screen tv. And it was less an acknowledgement of victory than it was a call to action:

“America, we have come so far.  We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do,” the President-elect said. “This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes. We. Can.”

Yes. Yes.

To be included on the notify list, e-mail me:
margaretdeangelis [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the brackets with @ and a period)