I am standing in the ballroom of the HotelVetro in downtown Iowa City, with hundreds of other Democratic staffers, volunteers, and political junkies. The night is going well. And then it happens. An Iowa news channel announces that political neophyte, Democratic candidate Dave Loebsack is "over 500 votes" ahead of Jim Leach with 99% of the precincts reporting... and the room explodes. Jim Leach comes out and gives what could be called a semi-concession speech. The mood was good before. Now it's electric.
I was an unbeliever. Jim Leach, the now-former representative of the 2nd district of Iowa, was either a genuine moderate Republican (he voted against the Iraq war) or he had gotten so good at
pretending to be a moderate that this seat was his for life. Dave Loebsack didn't have a chance in Hell. He had never even held
office before. Leach had held this seat since 1976--4 years before I was BORN. I believed Tester could win, I believed Webb could win, I was sure Casey could win... but Loebsack? Never.
But in the waning days of the campaign, I signed up to volunteer for Loebsack & the Democratic party, because I wanted to do whatever I could. I told the office coordinator, Simeon, that I was free for all of election day and wanted to do more to help, and he got very excited. Suddenly I was signed up to do four hours of poll watching... starting at 7 AM, followed by a two-hour shift of phone banking later that day. I wasn't thrilled to get up at 6 AM, but I motivated myself by imagining Bush having to give the State of the Union to a majority Democratic house.
6:15 AM, Tuesday. Due to a bad cough, I've been unable to get more than 3 hours of sleep. And I'm still coughing. Ugh. I almost consider cancelling. Then I imagine Bush, scowling petulantly out at all those Democrats... I drag myself out of bed and drive to St. Andrews' church.
My fellow Dem poll-watcher is Sue, a cheerful older woman who I worked with at a test scoring company. The Republican pollwatcher turns out to be a perfectly nice person (not really a surprise--this is Iowa after all.) Our job is to cross off the names of the Democrats who vote from a list of registered Dems in our precinct. Later, our precinct captain Duncan will use this list to contact anyone whose name isn't crossed off.
Four hours later, I head out to buy cough syrup and take a nap. Later, around 6 PM, I call fellow Dems on my cell phone from our precinct captain's house to confirm they've voted. I finish my list, so I call all my friends in Iowa City--one of them, Jesse, has actually forgotten to vote, so he heads off to the polls.
And now it is almost midnight and the news is telling us Loebsack is more than 500 votes up (it's actually 611. And one of those is Jesse.) And the absentee ballots look very good, and the last remaining percentage point covers Johnson County, a Democratic stronghold... and then Leach concedes. And we are all scremaing "Dave! Dave! Dave! Dave! Dave! Dave!" as the mild-mannered, friendly, bearded, college professor Loebsack (he reminds me a bit of Wellstone) enters the room. He looks pleased and a little surprised. I shake his hand, and he asks, to no one in particular, "Which way do I go?" And he's directed to the stage to give his victory speech.
This victory belongs to everyone who voted, who told somebody else to vote, who volunteered, who helped to staff Loebsack's campaign, and to everyone who kept the faith in the lean years since 1994.
We won a lot of races tonight, but nobody predicted this one. Along with NH-01, I think this race can rightfully be called one of the upsets of the evening, if not the decade.
That'll teach me to be an unbeliever. I haven't felt this good since 1992.
(Addendum: Loebsack's unofficial final margin of victory is actually 5,700 votes.)