This is the first part of the first draft of a letter I owe to a very generous individual that allowed me to experience history firsthand. I'll be posting more as we approach inauguration day.
I remember catching the bus out of the Denver airport. There’s no way to describe it to you, Cente. I was overcome with an intense... realization? Epiphany? Something like that. I think what I mean is, an awareness– of the incredible weight and significance of what I was about to be a part of, and of the infinite potential contained within all of us to make an enormous impact on our surroundings.
Watching the unfamiliar features of the strange new city pass by me, it occurred to me what an incredible thing it was that I had got to this point, to be present at such a momentous time and place in history, and to be on hand to witness it at its epicenter.
I remember frantic mornings in the heat of the fall campaign, waking up and immediately checking the day’s polls, with special attention on Colorado and Nevada. I had run the scenarios thousands of times, and I knew, or at least I was convinced, that we couldn’t get to 270 without breaking the Conservative spell on the Mountain West.
Toward Election Day, the outcome was becoming all but certain, but those of us who had been wandering in the political wilderness for the last 8 years refused to let what was becoming increasingly obvious rise above the level of a whisper. Words like "blowout" and "landslide" were flying around in hushed tones, and always discouraged as soon as they left anyone’s lips, as if giving our hopes a name we would scare them away.
And then, suddenly, there I was, flown into Ground Zero under cover of darkness, not content to wonder and whisper, but determined to put my shoulder to the wheel and make manifest what I knew was right and necessary.
I was terrified, Cente. Terrified that we would lose, that myopia and petty fears would overcome all of our hard work, that America would not see through the propaganda and do the right thing.
I looked at the faces of the people around me, walking the rain-slick streets or staring, expressionless, into the bus windows. They all seemed totally unaware that we were all standing on the precipice of history, and oblivious to the all-out war for their hearts and minds going on all around them.
I found myself wondering, as I had so many times in Nevada, how many of the people around me were also operatives– how many were sympathetic, and how many were plotting to undo my hard work? How many had been trucked in to go door to door telling lies, or trying to obfuscate the voting requirements, or trick people into staying home? Or worse?
I was never afraid that we would lose on the merits. I was more terrified that they would simply steal the election again. But this time, I would not sit back, helpless to the machinations of malevolent and venal men, pulling levers and strings in the halls of power. I was there, on the ground, in the very place where this contest would be won or lost.
And then, alongside the tense mixture of nerves and excitement, came something else- a powerful, burning rage at anyone who would usurp us. A powerful desire to physically harm anyone who would use dirty tricks to try to take what was rightfully ours.
Terrible thoughts swept through my mind, Cente. The same terrible thoughts as when I think about America’s secret prisons around the world. The same as when I think about the torturers and murderers doing the bidding of my Government.
It would all come to a head, I knew, in just a few days. And all of these wonderful and terrible thoughts clouded my mind as I rode through the streets in the dark.