We won, but I did not cry.
Paul Krugman says that means something's wrong with me, but I don't think so.
See, I didn't cry because I expected the result, with the exception of a few states that we flipped.
I expected it not because I had some great faith in America as a whole, but because I saw the Obama machine from the inside from the early days of the primary and onward.
I realized early that there is absolutely nothing in the whole world that can stand in the way of so many committed, hardworking, intelligent people organizing from the ground up, block by block, neighbor by neighbor.
We didn't just elect the first African-American president-- we broke an entire generations' worth of political strategy.
We broke the Confederacy with a black candidate.
We spat in Lee Atwater's face and sent the Right down in flames, while all along they were babbling about Socialists, Terrorists, Ant-Semites and 60's Radicals as if anybody still gave a shit.
We changed the face of politics irrevocably, and no one should forget how we did it, because the same kind of hard work and dedication will be required in the future if we really want a a progressive America.
This is my testament to what we built, in the hopes that we can carry it into the future. Enjoy.
Silver Springs, Nevada
You might think "sand dwellers" is an exaggeration, but consider- the location pictured below was actually an address on our walk list.
It was out here in the middle of the dessert where I realized why I was really doing this.
I saw real poverty out there for the first time in my life-- there were maybe a dozen real, permanent houses in the entire neighborhood we were in. The rest were just trailers, and even here, I saw far too many foreclosure signs. Many were just abandoned.
I met a man out here who believed that all black people are cursed by the mark of Cain, but myself and Frank (pictured in the video) wouldn't give up on the guy, and when we left, even he was willing to vote for Obama.
We met a woman who had lost her job and her health care, who was struggling just to keep the insurance that allows her son to visit the doctor. She told us she was taking medication, and was experiencing side effects that required medical attention. She couldn't do anything about it.
We described McCain and Obama's health care plans to her, and after that, there was no question about who she would vote for.
Perhaps more importantly, she told us that she had never even been visited by anybody about politics. Nobody had ever bothered before. I believe this, more than anything, is what made the difference.
We talk a lot about the 50-state strategy here on Kos. These are the people who make the sacrifices that make it work.
By the way, the 2008 results for Lyon County, NV were 57% McCain, 39% Obama.
Denver, CO
Remember "security moms", those suburban/exurban women that were successfully scared into voting for Bush in 2004? Well, we weren't about to just cede the suburbs again, and so it was that I ended up in the neighborhood of Green Valley Ranch, Denver, Colorado for GOTV.
On my way there, I stopped by the airport bookstore, where I saw this-
You'll note that the shelf features many copies of Jerome Corsi's discredited slime job Obama Nation, but not a single copy of The Real John McCain.
This was the staging location out in Green Valley Ranch. The place had only been open for a day and was already full of volunteers.
Overheard during the sign hanging: "You know why it says cleaners? Because we're going to clean McCain's clock!"
We did have a leg up in Denver. It turns out, the suburbs out here, like Northern Virginia, are Communist Country:
I'm sure many of you saw the pictures and heard the reports about Obama offices burning the midnight oil while GOP headquarters went dark. These were not isolated incidents. Here's how I spent my extra hour last weekend:
I don't have my precinct total yet, but I'll certainly make a lot of noise about it when I get it on November 18th. Not everybody got the joke here, but I imagine most Kossacks will.
That precinct represents ten and a half hours of walking, coordinating, and even making personal phone calls to talk brand-new voters through the process of filling out their mail-in ballot.
I was out canvassing until 15 minutes before the polls closed, and I didn't leave behind a single vote. Needless to say, it payed off-
.
As we all know, the fight isn't over. We're going to need the same kind of grit and hard work to overturn Proposition 8 here in California.
I worked for the No on 8 campaign, but clearly not hard enough. I've already been to two rallies to show my solidarity with my LGBT brothers, sisters, and everything in between, and I intend to back it up in the near future with the skills I learned on this campaign.
If we apply the same work ethic I saw in this campaign to other battles in the future, I know we'll win. Because, as we all know-
Thank you all for your hard work and sacrifice.
The last thing I want to share is the toast I gave at my field office after it became clear who the 44th President would be-
To a realignment that will last a generation.
We can have it, so long as we want it bad enough.