One soggy blogger's take on a wet night in Maryland
I am at the Rockville headquarters of the Donna Edwards campaign. To the blogosphere this is the big fight of the night; to me, it's icy goddamn Norbeck Road in the sleet, with poor lighting and black ice and bad road signs and I am surrounded by seemingly millions of my fellow Marylander who, infamously, cannot drive efficiently if there's a flake or a pellet of ice within 50 miles. (Am a lifer here in Maryland, am allowed that swipe.)
Am actually 100 yards away, getting my own coffee at a Caribou so as not to take what's reserved for the workers who worked in the icy mess. It is cold, wet, icy and miserable, and so am I. Took me an hour to get here from Silver Spring. I am also sick and exhausted, coming down with my annual obnoxious chest cold, it would appear.
The mood here is lightly busy, not too much to report. Since the Board of Elections extended poll hours to 9:30 PM due presumably to the weather, we don't know anything locally. Some nice people, a lot of very nice young people, a few activists and professionals from the liberal advocacy community. And if both the weather and my chest weren't so miserable I could enjoy myself.
I have no idea what extended hours mean to any campaign; the polls are still open and will be for another hour. I hate to leave but I have things to do before I die and therefore cannot afford to die this week on the road or of pneumonia. We shall see.
Originally I had planned on going to the Victory Party in Largo, but be damned if I am going to drive 25 miles from here to Largo, THEN 50 miles back to my house north of Baltimore. I have 40 miles ahead of me in the ice as it is.
Part of politics is putting up with icy nights. It's mostly not a warm-weather sport, especially in Presidential years in Maryland (state elections have primaries in September in the "World Cup" years rather than the "Olympic years." Yet something in me won't let me leave tonight, though I am sick.
I cannot claim to have done much for the Edwards campaign. Not my district, don't work in it either. Most I have done is to give a little PR to Donna at my ugly little blog or chimed in with this fine fellow's Scoop-based group blog. But we all must do what we can.
I am going back in, and will try not to infect people with my mood or my germs....
UPDATE: No mas, no mas. Now home at Chez Crablaw, gotta get up at 4:35 AM to catch a train to work by 7 AM. I know what you know. Got pretty tense and a little cold and little unfriendly at Team Edwards, this volunteer did not particularly mind leaving. But this was the tensest moment of the last 18 months, so they who actually gave their family lives to this effort deserve all respect and good cheer for their heroic efforts.
UPDATE: I am too sick to have participated in the victory party but DAMN I know it must have been a good one. Oh well. Maybe the party will still be going on when I commute from Baltimore to DC tomorrow, maybe a detour into Largo to meet the last party-all-night animal?
Sweet to see Al Wynn deader than yesterday's fried chicken.