I had been following the election obsessively online (or so my husband and children thought) so after making some donations I figured I should use my time more wisely by volunteering. I spent a couple weekends making calls but was still nervous so decided I'd take a couple of vacation days and make calls to swing states on the 3rd and 4th. Being in Northern California no need to do much here (little did we know Prop 8 would pass).
As things looked up for our guy I decided a party was in order. I had to work the day after the election but oh well. My friends and family are all like-minded so the list grew pretty quickly. What the heck! After making swing state calls earlier in the afternoon I dashed home and straightened up for guests. People started arriving around 6:00 PST and as expected McCain had won some of the southern red states. Still feeling a little nervous, then Pennsylvania - YES!!
A little while later the doorbell rang and another guest arrived with what he called an "Ohio" bottle of champagne - huh? We were watching our PBS station and hadn't heard Ohio had been called - YAHOO!!!! Quick switch to CNN confirmed. One friend said "Let's see what they're saying on Fox just for fun!" By this time my house was pretty crowded and it's almost 8pm PST. One of the teenagers starts the countdown to the west coast poll closings shown on CNN. It felt like New Year's Eve but a million times more important. We opened the doors and started screaming (mostly me and the kids) as President-Elect Obama was announced. My 91 year old mom started crying and mentioned a fair housing petition she worked on in the 60s. Everyone was feeling pretty euphoric. One friend compared it to falling in love. And one friend said "They'll be feeling bad so we should all hug a Republican tomorrow."