CvilleDems.Org

by Erika Raskin

After spending the day hanging precinct information on doorknobs, I returned home, ate my weight in pita chips and then lay on the couch in caloric overload and existential terror. As the initial results started to roll in on MSNBC (my new constant companion except when Joe Scarborough is on) my fear did not abate.

Even Rachel Maddow was freaking me out, wondering if Obama’s campaign might have made a strategic mistake expending resources in traditionally red states–spreading things too thin, coming close but not flipping any Republican strongholds into the blue column. It was like somebody commenting with alarm about a mole on your shoulder that had, until then, been just a wee bit worrisome.

Completely agitated, I was forced to hit the mute button. And finish the chips.
When my husband got home he convinced me to head back down to the Mall to go to Obama Headquarters. Glancing at our depleted snack pile I thought of the table that always overflowed with donated meals and desserts–and agreed.

When we arrived, a large crowd was huddled around the television, emitting bursts of nervousness, waiting to see how Virginia would go. Tension hung in the room like Marlboro smoke in the parties of my youth. I made my way to the food.

Around 11:00 a map of the Commonwealth must have appeared on the screen because everyone standing in front of me seemed to twitch in unison. We began hushing one another.  And then it came.

But it wasn’t the announcement we were expecting.

The reporter said that the AP had just declared Obama the new president of the United States. A wave of shock ran through the office, a roar of unadulterated joy, and then a sea of tears.

Millions of separate paths have brought us here.  I keep thinking of the day I was registering people and of the man who politely declined my offer.  He explained that he’d been voting since the time he was forced to pay a poll tax. Imagine that.

I looked around the room last night before we left,  awed by the workers and volunteers, and what had been accomplished. I envisioned the same scene unfolding all over the country and will never forget the moment that we learned America chose hope.