Voting for hope and change and stuff!
It wasn’t a close race, in the end, but none of the Obama supporters I know felt comfortable until it was finally, definitely confirmed.
And how! Dripping with symbolism and references to the past, I thought the victory speech was amazing (did he sound more like Martin Luther King, or more like John Kennedy?). It was delivered with a skill of oration that few other world leaders could ever match, and was dignified far beyond the weakness of McCain’s concession speech.
I was particularly interested in how the Internet played out in the victory! Within minutes of the “Obama’s won” announcement (led by CNN pretty much on the dot of west coast polls closing), my Facebook news feed was filling with celebratory status messages, nevermind expected channels like Twitter and the blogosphere. Everybody I know of used the Web to keep up with results. And the Obama campaign sent a thankful e-mail to everyone on their list ten minutes before his speech!
Amidst all of this, my housemates were entertaining to watch! It was one thing to see people holding signs at traffic lights and train stations saying “vote Obama” or “yes on proposition 8” (see below), but it was quite another to see otherwise sensible people go insane with cheering and dancing and other expressions of having their faith restored, simply because a different party won an election!
(Although I was in Sydney and Melbourne during the last rounds of the campaign — both of which showed me an awesome time, yay for walking the bridge at 1am! — it didn’t seem to matter that I missed them. As far as I can tell, the biggest factors were losing trust in the Republicans because of the financial crisis, and never having gained trust in Sarah Palin.)
But California, oh, what were you thinking? Counting is incomplete but it looks like the vote is for a ban on gay marriage?! (The county map is telling: “no” votes centre entirely on the Bay Area …)
I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to post something
Even though it cost me dearly [the first 3 hours of sleep I'd had in a couple of days], I was up watching the coverage from a bit after 9am. Guess that means that I am the political junkie I used to be, except that I’ve just become too jaded about _local_ politics. Made sure I recorded the speech on the set-top box too – I’ll burn it to DVD later, as I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a fairly defining moment in history. TV coverage here was sucky – 3, then 4 channels rebroadcasting NBC, CNN, ABC and BBC, sometimes mixed together – but of course each channel couldn’t just stick with the raw footage – they had to have their _own_ experts and US-based local network reporters and local commentators throwing in their two bob’s worth. And then cutting to ad breaks without any synchronisation with the US coverage ad breaks. Le Sigh. A very annoying couple of hours there – I’d have given up and just watched it online if I hadn’t gone through my monthly quota already
But to make a comment of substance
The victory speech was indeed amazing, and I think most people can’t wait to see what happens next. One of the main things that was reinforced for me later on in the day as I watched the evening news wrap-up was the disparate crowd reactions – of course there was a significantly different emotion in Phoenix than in Chicago, but the clincher? Obama supporters cheering “McCain’s efforts” when mentioned by Obama, followed a few minutes later by video of McCain’s concession and the boos that followed.
My immediate reaction to their boos was “That was why you lost, you dumb fuckwits!” It also reminded me of Mr. Angry’s recent post and entertaining imagery especially made for your local redneck – see it for yourself [http://angryaussie.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/barack-hussein-obama-who-is-he-really/]
I can only see booing being “OK” in one situation – on the footy field e.g. bad umpire calls and dirty play – that’s it. You don’t boo opposing teams of any sort [footy teams, political teams, any team], win or lose, unless there’s something egregiously unfair or wrong.
I do think that McCain actually did manage a level of graciousness in defeat [despite his supporters] – whether that was because the RNC wasn’t in the driver’s seat anymore – who knows? But certainly McCain didn’t have any speechwriters like the President-Elect
I did wonder “where was this McCain during the campaign?” while he conceded.
Finally, a number of commentators have suggested that McCain may yet play a role in the new administration [yet another homage to West Wing Season 7!] I think that would signal a watershed in US politics and maybe – just maybe – some republican voters might just get what Obama means when he speaks of “Change.”
OK – that’s my take…
M.
P.S. I’m somewhat ambivalent about Prop 8 but since it’s neither affecting me nor me affecting it – I’ll leave that one alone… BTW you dropped the “L” from .html in the county map link. It’d be interesting to see the map in a less “binary” representation…
Hey Hourann,
I was just reading on Slashdot about how apparently there is a new 1 billion dollar plan to create infrastructure for electric cars in the bay area. Sounds interesting, and I immediately thought of you. Here is a link:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/11/25/california-unveils-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-plan/
I suppose now California just needs to develop more clean power generation.
Also, how are you doing, in general? And specifically, have you looked at the options for purchasing our basketball and hockey tickets? We can give you more detailed information on which areas we would like to sit in, and we can send you the money as soon as things are booked.
Plus we need to book our little Vegas jaunt. I saw some package deals on travelocity.com which include flights and accomodation at casinos on the strip for around $150 per night.
Over and out.