For election night, we both left work on the early side and by 5:45 we’d set up camp in front of the tv, with laptops fired up and beverages at the ready.
Kevin picked up some Sam Adams for luck — at some point it turned into our superstitious choice for Red Sox and Patriots games, and I thought it was an appropriate choice for a night of high-stakes national politics. 🙂 (You can also tell from the mess of blankets in the foreground that while the heat is on, our place still isn’t balmy. The new insulation seems great, but the thermostat is still set to 64. We keep considering upping it, but it would mean getting out from under all of our blankets… inertia and cheapskatedness are a tricky combo.)
This marks the first time that I’ve voted for the winning candidate in a presidential election. (finally!) And now that the results are in, I’m so proud and relieved. It’s been such a long campaign (I started listening to Obama’s campaign speeches several months before the wedding in Spring 2007– impressive when you consider how much has happened in the intervening time). Kevin pointed out last night that it seems like eons ago that I got to caucus for Obama. And in recent months, the stakes (economy, energy, environment, education, etc, etc) kept rising.
My only point of sadness was that the primaries were officially my last time voting at the polls. We finally went in to update our addresses on our drivers licenses in September, and sometime during that process they updated our voter registration (which I’d actually already done, but still) and marked us for mail-in ballots. Our county officially switches to mail-in only next year (Washington is following Oregon’s lead), and so from here on in, it’s all stamps and the postal service. I’m disappointed — I enjoy going to the local elementary school to vote, and I’ve always appreciated how happy the volunteers are to see a twenty-something roll in the door.
Hooray for Obama!! I was so excited! I did vote by absentee ballot and I really liked it. Matt and I sat side by side with our ballots and the kids around us and we were able to see the pros/cons about all the issues. Not just the big ones like Pres/Gov/Rep but all the ones that were tricky like Prop 1000 or Judges and School Superintendent and so forth. I felt it was the first time I voted truly informed instead of guessing a bit and under pressure at the voting booths on the issues I wasn’t clear on.