Waking up on election day was weird because it felt like a day that would never come. The election season began almost two years ago, and for most of this year it’s been been on the top of many people’s minds, and dominating the news. For it to actually be election day seemed almost unbelievable.

The first time I’d heard Obama speak at length was during the primaries. He seemed like he would be a great president, but didn’t seem like a realistic pick for the democratic party. The choice in the primaries wasn’t to decide who would be president, but rather, who would be the strongest opponent to McCain, or to whoever the republicans would end up putting forward. Hillary Clinton had much more experience and was more well known, and more of a traditional candidate, and a stronger challenge to the Republicans. I hoped Obama would win the primaries, but didn’t really expect him to.

But then, state by state, it became clear that he would be the democrat candidate.

Obama poster

At the democratic conference he presented himself as someone who would be a great president, but it still wasn’t clear if he could hold his own in the coming fight against McCain and his new running mate, Palin. In the months that followed he crept slowly forward in the polls and it actually became conceivable that he might win, and then a couple of weeks ago it looked like almost guaranteed. But still, waking up on election day, it was clear that anything could happen.

I walked with Meredith to the local polling station. It turned out to be in someone’s garage, which I hadn’t really expected, but thinking about it, it was pretty cool to see all those millions spent campaigning, all the razzmatazz of the conventions and the debates and the media frenzy, to see democracy itself reduced to a group of neighbors gathering at someone’s garage to vote for the next US President.

Waiting in line

California is a very democratic state. There was never any chance that it would end up voting republican, so neither Obama or McCain spent a whole lot of time campaigning here. Obama did come to Google during the primaries though to give a speech. I went along mostly to see the circus — the media cameras and vans, and the secret service with their earpieces, talking into their sleeves. Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt is a big supporter of Obama. He appeared in the 30-minute TV spot Obama put out just before the election, and just yesterday he was apparently offered a cabinet position in Obama’s government — he turned it down. Obama’s speech at Google was great — much better than
Hillary Clinton’s, who was just full of platitudes about Google being such an innovator, and how we were the future, blah blah blah. In his Google speech, Obama talked about things that matter to Google people — like net neutrality. He also announced a vision he has called “Google for government”, which would allow Americans to get much easier access to what’s going on in Washington.

Obama’s Google Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4yVlPqeZwo

Last month the economy crashed (or whatever — I don’t understand what’s going on), and it was really the killing blow to McCain. Not only was he tied to Bush (who got us into this mess), during the primaries he admitted that the economy wasn’t his strong point, and then that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” even when they weren’t. Up until that point, the main things dominating the election news cycles were trivial things like Obama’s “Lipstick on a pig” comment, or his running mate Biden’s various trip ups. But now, all that anyone cared about was the economy, and that favored the democrats.

When it was Meredith’s turn to vote I stepped aside and waited. It felt bad, not getting to vote. I felt like a second class citizen! Except that I’m not even a US citizen — I’m a “non-resident alien”. I get to pay taxes, but I don’t get to choose who represents me in government. Maybe I’ll get to vote in 2012!

Then I went to work and like everyone else, didn’t do any work. Clearly everyone was trying to keep up with the very latest news, and hoping there wouldn’t be any election day surprises. Google even canceled everyone’s meetings in calendar that day, so that we’d be able to pay attention and vote.

California is three hours earlier than the East coast, so the voting exit polls began closing quite early in the day — around 3pm. I was at a friend’s house party by 4pm, just as the first major exit polls started coming out. Then everything moved really fast. I lost track of which states were swing states and which were important to watch. And there was a loud dude shouting at the TV which made it hard to hear
what was happening. At one point I saw someone with a map on CNN point out that even if McCain won all the remaining swing states, it would still be almost impossible for him to win.

We were switching between the news networks through the night. CNN and MSNBC are fairly democratic and also happened to have good coverage. At 7pm we were watching Fox New which is strongly republican. Everyone in Fox was looking glum. The California polls closed and as expected went to Obama. Then the screen read: “Fox News predicts: Obama to win presidency” there was a huge roar across the city. We checked the other networks and they were all also calling it for Obama. The whole
voting thing that morning had actually worked!

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McCain gave his speech, with Palin by his side. They haven’t been seen together since, as stories of fierce infighting emerge. Obama gave a speech from Chicago, where there was a huge crowd gathered. I was expecting him to be joyous or show some emotions, but it was a verysomber speech. He was getting all presidential.

Straight after we hit the streets. People had set up barricades — they’d moved cars to block streets so people could party. The cops came along and removed the the blocking cars and put up popper
barriers, and the party continued. The same thing was on the top of everyone’s minds, and it showed. People made eye contact, and talked with strangers. It reminded me of the time last year when there was a little earthquake here — it had the affect of jolting everyone’s attention away from what they were doing, so that suddenly everyone was on the same page, nodding at each other: “yep, that was an earthquake!.

Down in the mission district, I approached a crowd of people blocking an intersection. There were all cheering, and then I heard the national anthem being played by a trumpeter who was standing above the crowd. Many people in San Francisco cringe a little  at national sentiments like the anthem or saluting the flag, or respecting anything that goes on at a national level, except maybe when it’s related to sports or entertainment. Many people here are embarrassed to be American. But on that night the crowd sang along loudly and happily. You could see them becoming proud to be American and excited that they wouldn’t have to pretend to be Canadian when abroad.

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Video

The excitement was tainted by another question that Californians had voted on that day: whether or not to ban gay marriages, which have been happening here for a couple of years. Much to the dismay of everyone in the Castro (and decent people across the city and state), the proposition passed, and the marriages will be banned. Strangely, many San Franciscan’s are feeling proud to be American but ashamed to be Californian. Hopefully Obama will get to appoint some reasonable supreme court judges though, and legalize gay weddings across the country.

In the week since then, the reality slowly sinks in. McCain has all but disappeared; Palin has been tagged and released back into the wilds of Alaska. President Bush has had President-elect Obama over to the white house, where Obama saw the Oval Office for the very first time.

The economic crisis hasn’t gone away. Guantanamo bay is still open. In the middle east, people are still burning the American flag. Nothing substantial has changed yet, but there’s a feeling that things are going to get better. Which is fairly impressive, seeing as how it’s looking like we’re at the start of a two-year recession.

Let’s see what happens.

• More photos on Flickr