Anyone else out there going through post-election depression/withdrawal? I wake up every day thinking I have to run to my computer to see who won Missouri. Or to see if Obama is winning Oregon by 300,000 votes yet. I guess I just want that feeling from election night all over again.
Then again, when I look at how the Alaska Senate race is going now, that feeling does come flooding back. :)
When I was in the Henderson Office for Change (Nevada) the night of the election, we actually didn't have access to TV. We were watching the returns come in on the internet. None of us were that surprised by Pennsylvania, but we were all a little shocked at how quickly they called Ohio. It was all over so quickly.
What I've been doing is looking up some clips from election night on you tube. Here is one of my favorites ("The McCain campaign strategy has crashed!")
Two things about Chris Matthews' analysis that I take issue with: 1. He seems to give Ed Rendell a bit too much credit for Obama winning PA. True, Rendell's help is much appreciated, but it was really Obama's massive voter registration drive and vastly superior ground game that got the job done. 2. Chris Matthews keeps repeating the meme that Obama couldn't do well in Western PA. This is false. True, he (barely) lost a couple counties that John Kerry barely (BARELY) won such as Fayette and Beaver and Washington, but Barack Obama actually won Mercer, Cambria, and Elk counties - three counties which are strongly Appalachian and very rural. Taken as a whole, Barack Obama did better than John Kerry in rural Appalachian Pennsylvania and outstripped Kerry in Western Pennsylvania as a whole. (Btw, Ed Rendell actually lost Mercer County in the 2002 Gubernatorial. lol.)
Here is the pivotal moment from election night, where Obama is projected to win Ohio. Personally, I felt I detected just a bit of disappointment from Joe Scarborough and/or David Gregory. Maybe I am reading into it too much.
I love how Bishop T.D. Jakes is just in the middle of being polite by suggesting that McCain could still win when, oops, all of a sudden, Obama wins Ohio! Chris Matthews as usual chimes in with his "Obama can't win rural Appalachia" garbage and his "it must have been the cities that gave him PA and OH" meme. Incidentally, Obama, as he did in PA, won counties in Ohio that other Democrats only dreamed about, like Tuscarawas for instance (Tuscarawas County is 97% white and is very working class). He also did significantly better in the northwest and central rural counties in Ohio than either Gore or Kerry did. Go figure.
(sidenote: Isn't Eugene Robinson just adorable?)
Here is that wonderful video again that Jed L put together. It's a masterfully crafted video. And I think Obama's victory speech is my very favorite of his.
I so look forward to having adults running the White House again, sans the drama of past few Presidential terms(hopefully). Even with some Clinton people on board, Obama's administration is going to have an altogether different complexion from the ones we have seen in recent history. If we Democrats do this right, we can have the White House for the next 16 years. That would be incredible.