Today I am more proud of my country than I have ever been in my life. And taking part in the election of Barack Obama has been one of the best things I have done in that life. Every weekend since September I have knocked on the doors of Livingston and talked to my new neighbors about this election. It not only gave me a chance to get to know the town better than I would have for a long time, given that I live out here in the sticks, but it gave me a chance to see what people are like here. Almost without exception, the people of Livingston were gracious and friendly whether they supported Obama or McCain or, in a surprising number of cases, Ron Paul. There were always a respectable number of Obama supporters, and as the end of the campaign grew near, a fair number of undecided voters who came to support Obama, albeit with some reservations.
I probably would have that lean-to for sheltering the buried pipes from deep freezes done if I hadn't spent so many days doing this work. But then I wouldn't have felt such a part of this great moment.
Yesterday I started out the day by voting at the county fairgrounds. Early voting was allowed in Montana, but I did not want to pass up what I see as an important community ritual. Standing in line with my neighbors on election day and talking with the volunteers who run the polls and walking out with that silly little sticker are small moments that I cherish. This time, after voting I went to Obama headquarters yet again to get lists of names and addresses of supporters and to go out to knock on doors one last time to get out the vote. After six hours of door knocking in the wind and rain, I was excited. Almost all the people I had contacted had voted and were anxiously awaiting results. They thanked me for my efforts. A few that had not voted still had questions about voting. I even found a few who had not registered, and did not know they could still register and vote if they had been living here for 30 days.
At the end of the day I sat in the headquarters watching the large television someone had brought in as the first results came in. It's funny, after all the polls showed Obama so far ahead, how the campaign volunteers didn't want to jinx it by talking as if he would win. They agonized over every red state that showed up on the map. They called their friend in other states to see what the mood was like elsewhere. Finally, as the polls were about to close here in Montana, we all went over to the Elks lodge which the campaign had rented for the evening. There was a pot luck dinner and almost a hundred people were there, gathered around one large tv and two smaller ones as the results came in. The mood grew more and more excited as the numbers mounted and it became plain that Obama could not lose. When it was finally announced that he had won, people screamed and jumped around and hugged each other. When McCain gave his concession speech, except for a few cheap shots at Sarah Palin, people listened respectfully and nodded their heads in approval at his speech. But then, when Barack Obama came to the podium with his wife and daughters, this room full of white Montanans came to their feet and applauded and cheered as if they were there in Chicago. As he gave his beautiful speech, everyone got caught up in the call and response: "Yes we can!" as if they were in a black church. Tears were rolling down cheeks (including mine). One old lady said, "I am so glad I lived to see this day!" We all drank champagne. It was wonderful.
All night, we all cheered everytime results from Montana came up on the screen. Obama was always a few points ahead of McCain in those early results. I left after the acceptance speech because it was starting to snow, but this morning I see that Montana ended up going narrowly to McCain, so it was not all success. But that it was so close, in this former fly-over red state, was at least something to cling to. And in the end, it didn't matter because not only did Obama win, but he won some states from the mountain west (Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado) and from the south and from the midwest that have not supported Democrats for a long time. The popular vote was decisively on Obama's side, although there are still almost half the people of this country who did not support him, and when he said he hears those voices, I hope he is right and he stays humble. After seven years of living in Idaho, where the culture wars are everything and Democrats don't stand even a little chance except in small enclaves, like my old neighborhood in Boise, I am very aware of the difficulties and opposition he faces. But here in Montana, he did pretty well, and I have to say it was refreshing to think I could make a difference.
I drove home in the swirling snow, up the mountain with the Beastie in compound low and the snow getting a little deeper the higher I got. When I got to the turnoff for our and Jeff's part of the road, I decided that it was snowing too hard and the snow was too deep to take a chance on driving the rest of the way. I didn't want to have to get up and move the truck out today. So I parked and stumbled home in tennis shoes in the dark. The snow was not as deep as it looked, and it reflects light well enough to find my way, and I was so jacked up from the day's events that it was not hard to walk that last half mile. Images of Obama and his family and the crowd in Chicago played in my head. Words from his speech were ringing in my ears. By the time I got home, relit the heater in the bathhouse ( :( ), got the woodstove going so it wouldn't be cold in the house in the morning, and got to bed, it was almost two in the morning.
I know that hopes for Obama will not all be fulfilled. He is only one man. He will disappoint us. He will even anger us. We will protest against his policies sometimes. But in the end, that we elected him will go a long way to redeeming us from the disastrous depths we have sunk to in the last eight years. That he is a thoughtful, intelligent, skillful leader who, from the evidence of the campaign, is at his best in a crisis will have to count for something. And if he inspires us to service and sacrifice, as he said in his speech, then there is hope for us after all.
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