|
A wonderful night spent with fellow Democrats. Meeting people, and making friends even among supporters of a certain rival candidate.
It was clear from the moment I arrived at my Colorado precinct that Obama supporters outnumbered me by a good margin. My precinct station was at a local community college. I arrived at door opening time, 6:30, and there was already a line stretched across the parking lot. It was freezing cold, made worse by my forgetting my gloves, and there were so many people that no parking was available. Despite this, people kept coming, hiking from distance to make it to the polling place even in the chill. The line kept growing and growing, and we were all amazed. One Obama supporter said they wished they'd brought their camcorder, and I agreed. It's not every day you not see, and experience, history being made. By the time I finally made it into the station (about 8:30, 2 hours after I got there) it took another 40 minutes for everyone else to make it inside. Everyone was happy. Everyone was excited.
Our 7:00 caucus finally started at 9:15. One of the caucus workers apologized for the slow progress and said that they'd planned for 4x the previous caucus crowd. That was 44 people. Instead, THOUSANDS of Democrats showed up to participate. The community college was working as best as they could to make other buildings available for the overflow. Despite the animosity between some camps on progressive forums, everyone was friendly at the caucus. Everyone respected one another's choices. Everyone knew that tonight we were help picking the next President of the USA.
One man in front of me said: "This is George Bush's REAL legacy." And I think he's right. Wouldja know it, Ol' George really *was* a uniter after all. Historic turn-outs. Historic candidates. George Bush has made Democrats more powerful than he could have ever feared we would be. Even with Obama inspiring his supports, we Clinton supporters have kept up. And it's because George Bush has united us. He has accidentally revitalized the Democratic party and the American hunger for freedom and progress.
|