On Election Night

I was living in Taiwan in 2004 and on election night I spent what, in Taiwan, was the early afternoon kneeling on my white tiled floor coloring in red and blue states as returns came in. When Ohio was called for Bush, I had already finished coloring in all the blue states but still had a large swath of red to finish. My roommate Peter Lang didn’t understand my masochism over the next two days as I sat slowly filling in Texas and Alaska and the voluminous plain states, but I like things thorough and I wanted to see what we were up against. When the map was done I placed it on my white wall. Two strips of blue separated by a contiguous sea of red that seemed insurmountable. Next to it, I placed a poster of Eminem shooting himself with a “bang” sign coming out of the gun. I still don’t know what argument I was making. I didn’t understand the map either. Did it mean that democrats, liberals, progressives or very simply people who didn’t like war and wanted better health care and education were being pushed into the ocean? Or was it that we were simply establishing a beach head before we made our slow march to the center?
A few days later I saw a speech that made me realize that I was asking the wrong questions. I had heard about Barack Obama. I first saw him on this flash video game on Comedy Central’s website. It was a game of Caddyshackesque groundhog bopping where different political figures popped out of holes and your job was to whack em with a golf club. Howard Dean would come out of his hole and you guessed it: scream. Kerry would say something …I forget. And there was this other guy: this Obama character who would yell out “The Audacity of Hope” right before I whacked him with the golf club.
I, after a hundred or so tries, got bored with the game and decided that I wanted to find out what had warranted this man’s prestigious position in the game. So I did a search for Barack Obama and found his 2004 Democratic convention speech. For the record, if you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s mind blowing.

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Before watching that speech I had been experiencing a growing frustration with America and American politics. I was tired of being scared to tell people who I had voted for. In 2000, I voted for Bush. But I was scared to tell Gore voters because of the ferocity and speed with which they vilified any member or supporter of Bush’s administration. In 2004 I voted for Kerry. But I was scared to tell my Republican friends for fear they would call me a wimp or a traitor.
September 11th only heightened this fear and frustration. When those planes hit those buildings, I knew we were goin g to war and that we were going to have to sacrifice and give much of ourselves, but I wanted my President to offer a new idea, a way to win the war and the hearts of the world at the same time. On September 12th, when our leaders told us that the best way to help our country to heal was to buy stock or go shopping, I was deflated. A few days later, in a national address, Bush spoke the words, “if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” On the surface, it was clear that Bush was addressing those words to leaders and citizens of other nations, but my intuition told me otherwise. To me, the essence of that statement was for the American people and its intention was to drive any detractors underground. And underground most of us went. Whenever a political science professor, documentary filmmaker or a country singer objected to Iraq or any other post-911 policy they were shouted down and often boycotted. We, a nation of “free thinkers” were no longer allowed to disagree.
These were the frustrations I held inside as I listened to Obama’s convention speech. He moved away from political simplification and respected us enough to point out the nuance of our political geography. He no longer apologized for being a democrat or believing in democratic ideals. He objected to the war while arguing for the patriotism of not only those who agreed with him but also of those who disagreed. He, for the first time in my political memory, offered a middle ground.
I remember showing the video to Pete who often sat next to me with his head in his hands at the brilliant yet horrifying insights of The Daily Show. I told Pete to “check this out” because he “might like it.” Five minutes into the speech, Pete looked at me and said “I’m sold.” He must have heard what I was hearing: a voice to his frustration and hidden optimism.
I told Pete that Barack should parlay that speech into a run for the presidency. I argued that waiting would only taint his voting record like it did all Senators and that America was primed now for such a candidate. The electricity of that audience was my evidence. I didn’t know if Obama had a real fighting chance, but I knew he should at least try. Most people I told this to would quickly say that it was “too soon” and that Obama was “too young,” and I wondered if maybe they were right and Obama would be practical and lay up for 2012 or 16.
Once Obama announced his run, the next objection was that America wasn’t “ready” for a black president. My argument against that was that America is never ready for the change that comes to it, but change comes anyway and to not try just because of a hunch about latent white racism would be a travesty. So, after moving back to America, I went to Las Vegas to hear Obama speak to see if I wanted to campaign for this guy.
It’s funny to think about 100,000 people at that rally in St. Louis and remember that hot September afternoon and the barely 1000 people at that community center in a poor black neighborhood of Las Vegas. Obama spoke and inspired some, but most listened quietly and many walked out midway through the event to head to their shift at some casino. (Hardly the pop star he was later accused of being.) But he stayed true to my impression of him…offering thoughtful nuanced answers to issues such as racial profiling and predator lending. The crowd appreciated his candor, as far as I could tell.
I went back to Sacramento, now living there, and went to a meeting of the Sacramento for Obama group. I saw a woman named Kim Mack speak about how her son, Bobby, was at that time stationed in Iraq as a combat medic and that her singular mission was to get him home safe and make sure that no more mothers had to lose a son in that war. (Bobby did get home safe). I saw many others there from many different races, occupations and economic levels. I liked the people I met and I decided to work with them.
When I joined the campaign I had no idea the impact one could have getting involved in politics, but I got to do some pretty cool stuff. I helped open a campaign headquarters. I organized a trip to San Francisco to see Obama speak. I served as “advanced party” for John Kerry’s speech two days before Super Tuesday. The coolest thing though was registering my mother to vote.
While driving to work one day, my mom confessed to me that she had never voted in her entire life. She saw the process as complicated and worried that she would be plagued with mail and phone calls if she registered. I suspected she didn’t feel she had the right to vote because she didn’t know enough about the candidates and the issues—an impulse I respect and see as responsible. I reassured her that the process wasn’t too complicated. A few months went by and I continued working on the campaign doing canvasses and voter registration drives. I got to see people light up as they registered to vote and I resolved to register my mom when I could.
On Christmas day, on the way to visiting relatives, I showed my mom the headquarters and she proudly took mom photos. Before I went to close the place up, I pulled out a voter registration form and informed her which candidates were running for which party and which one she should join if she liked one of them. As she tentatively grabbed the pen and began filling out the spaces, she told me she wasn’t sure yet but was leaning toward Hilary or Obama, so she signed as a democrat.
After that my mom started calling more with questions. She would ask me about the ballots and issues literature when they were sent to her. She asked me about caucuses, primaries and superdelgates, and she called me after Obama’s win in Iowa and in other states to congratulate me and tell me her thoughts. One of the best comments I ever heard in support for Obama came from my mom. She said that when she watched Hilary speak in Iowa, she saw older politicians and celebrities behind her, but when she saw Obama speak, she saw people like us.
Obama summed it up best when he said that voters were wrong if we thought the campaign was about him. In the midst of being painted as a celebrity and being criticized for speaking in such a grandiose venue, Obama looked out at the crowd in Denver and to Americans crowded around televisions and said, “it’s about you.” At that moment, I was reminded about why I joined the campaign all those months ago. I remembered the playful ribbing I got from my brother-in-law and coworkers about Obama’s slim chances. I remembered the moment when Jared Anderson and I decided to get that headquarters once and for all. And I remember, on the Saturday before Super Tuesday, telling a black woman who had just argued that “They” won’t let him win, that my mother, a 60-year-old white woman, had just registered to vote and Tuesday would be voting for Obama, she looked at me and said “Really?....I’m voting for Obama, then.”