The end of a long road

It seems like the US presidential election has been going on for ever.

Serious campaigning has been going on for two years and quite frankly I’m sick of it all. The politicians must be too, and recently they all have a look in their eyes I see at day long press briefings that screams “OK, plaster on a smile and let’s go through this shit one more time.”

This is not my first election night and to be honest I was dreading it. In 2004 I was staying with my then girlfriend in New York. We went to an election night party and watched Kerry begin to sweep states and retired happily and drunkenly to bed.

The next morning I got up to make the tea and opened the laptop to find out that the world had four more years of the idiot in chief, America’s reputation in the world was massively damaged after electors confirmed the 2000 fiasco and the day was going to be spent talking to New Yorkers who were scared at what Bush was going to do to the city in retaliation.

The omens looked much better this time around. Obama’s people had run a good campaign and were outspending and out organising the opposition. Plus there were the candidates themselves.

Obama is a once in a generation public speaker, he really gets the hairs up on the back of the neck when he’s in full flow. Being a great speaker however doesn’t make one a good politician however. Enoch Powell was a great speaker, but a despicable race baiter as well, and Adolph Hitler apparently was inspirational in his native tongue.

What does make a good politician, and it’s something Obama has in spades, is intelligence. Unlike some in this country I don’t want a leader who would be a good person to have a beer with, although that’s always nice. I want the smartest person in the room, a philosopher king (or queen) who can make hard decisions even if they are unpopular and who thinks things through rather than bombing some brown people because it seems like a good idea at the time.

McCain is the best of a bad bunch to oppose him. An admirable service record, a genuine individual for most of his career and a man I admired until he started his run for the 2008 presidency. In 2000 he’d pulled no punches and fought for what he believed in, campaign finance reform that is still desperately needed, fairer taxation and American moral leadership. But in 2008 he binned all that and towed the party line, and lost all that he had gained in many people’s eyes.

There was also the Palin factor. McCain is over 70 and has had four bouts of cancer. To pick Palin as a running mate was a disastrous choice. Not only is she woefully inexperienced but her record as it stands isn’t good – turning budget surpluses into deficits, charging rape victims for evidence gathering and using official power to sort out family disputes. What few interviews she gave were painful to watch.

Now although the fact that Obama was running with a few points lead as we went into the final day I was far from confident. Opinion polls are a very inexact science and there are other factors to consider.

In the last eight years America has changing its voting system considerably. Electronic voting machines are widely used, and they are prone to failure and outright hacking. I’ve still got serious doubts about such systems. Paper and pencil ballots may seem primitive but they have definite advantages.

Firstly they are very difficult to fix. An electronic vote with no paper receipt is impossible to verify, where as paper ballots can be easily recounted. Secondly paper ballots are also very difficult to forge – you need an army of people writing fraudulent slips to swing an election and the chances of everyone keeping their mouths shut are minimal – as G Gordon Liddy said, the only conspiracy that works are when three people are involved and two of those are dead. Electronic votes can be forged with a couple of key strokes.

Then there’s the voter panic factor. In the UK in 1992 Labour was ahead in the polls but when people got to the actual ballot box they panicked over the thought of having to pay slightly higher taxes and voted in John Major. I was worried the same thing might happen, particularly with the ridiculous socialism campaign waged against Obama.

So let’s just say it was a tense day at work. We tried to get much of the day’s work done early, since the results from the East Coast wouldn’t start coming in until the middle of the afternoon. As the day wore on less and less work got done as everyone started hitting refresh on the results screens and waiting for the first states to be called.

The first result was the exit polls, but considering these had called the election for Kerry in 2004 they were taken with not so much a inch of salt as a tanker load of Saxa. They looked good for Obama, very good in fact. Almost too good…

As the day wore on the first calls started to come in, and news of each win was passed quickly round the office. People who barely spoke to each other on a normal day were eagerly sharing information, gossip and rumour.

By 5pm things were shaping up. In key states like Pennsylvania and Ohio Obama was looking very good and even Florida seemed to be in play. This was either shaping up to be a great result or a massive disappointment.

I left the office and hurried over to Si’s hotel, where we were going to watch the Daily Show’s roundup of the results over beer and pizza. By the time the (very funny) show had ended it looked like Obama had it in the bag. Ohio had turned blue and almost no Republican has ever become president without the state. We left for the Mad Dog in a state of high excitement.

As the taxi took us to the pub I began to notice more and more people in the streets, milling about and hanging around outside bars smoking, all with faces turned inwards at the TV screens within. Maybe I was imagining it but there seemed real tension in the air.

When we finally got there the pub was busier than I’d ever seen it. Not even standing room only, everyone was crushed in tight but the mood was jubilant. We’d missed it on the trip in but McCain had given a speech pretty much admitting defeat. People were hugging and kissing each other at the news and as we fought our way to the bar there was a pile of tips piling up for the staff (H made over $400 in tips that night).

I subsequently watched McCain’s speech on YouTube and it was him at his best. A few more like that on the campaign and Obama might not have won. It was gracious, honest and showed him to be a great patriot of the proper kind – not my country right or wrong, but genuine feeling for his land and a desire to make it better. His audience was much less gracious, and given some of the booing and shouting the Secret Service is going to be very busy protecting Obama.

Anyway, back in the bar and the news came on that Obama would give a speech at 9pm. Tensions mounted and everyone was glancing at the monitors to see if he was on the podium. When he stepped out from behind the curtains and strode forward the bar erupted into cheers, clapping and screams of delight. Then, as he stepped up to the bar the crowd fell silent and we strained to listen.

And then the sound failed, dead static filling the speakers. H behind the bar tried to fix it to shouts of frustration and what seemed like ages, but was just a few seconds, it came back on and the silence was deafening as we all heard his words.

What a speech it was. Inspiring to the extreme, measured and honourable in his treatment of McCain. He spoke to all Americans, no matter who they were, and asked that they join in making this country great again. I’m willing to bet there were even some hardened racists watching who found themselves getting a bit choked up. The crowd swung from silence to wild cheers during pauses and I found myself punching the air with delight and screaming with them.

But what really struck me was its realism. He didn’t sugar coat the tough road ahead. Sacrifices would need to be made. He’s coming into the worst economic crisis this country has faced in nearly a century, two wars are being waged and things are going to get bloody in the religious wars ahead.

But, as he repeated, “yes we can” a strange thing began to happen; we began repeating it too. Slowly, but with more and more people joining in, the refrain “yes we can” was repeated, again and again. It was kind of scary looking back on it, this is how mass movements begin, but it felt good at the same time.

As his last words faded away the bar erupted again but for myself I felt in a little island of calm. It was done, he was in, and America’s long national nightmare was over. While my friends and strangers both celebrated I retreated a little into myself and savoured the moment, and I’m not ashamed to say got a teeny bit moist around the eyes.

It’s a cliché to say that this was history in the making, but that’s because clichés only become that because they are the nuts and bolts of our language – they define the commonly expressed and felt. But there really was something special about this night.

Even three years ago if you’d have told me the next president wouldn’t be an old white man I’d have thought you were a hopeless idealist. OK, I’d have made an exception for Hillary Clinton, but she struck me as another Thatcher – a woman by genetics only. She’s the best president this country never had and frankly deserves to be in the White House but too many people hate her for that to happen. If this election proved anything it’s that sexism is stronger than racism in America.

But, as the crowd dispersed and we ordered another pitcher of beer, that warm fuzzy feeling lingered. The election is a turning point in American history. Not just the first black president, but a chance for America to regain its lost ground. Barring a revolution the next century belongs to China, America is at the zenith of its power and glory, but what a way to go out; holding true to the ideals it has for so long failed to live up to – that anyone can make it to the top if they have the intelligence and drive.