I was getting teary eyed just looking through Facebook. Eight years ago, the nation made history. Now we stand on the edge of making history again. Rather than panic, instead of worrying myself sick, I looked through my blog posts from Election 2008.
Grab a tissue.
From 11/6/2008:
It’s a Presidential Election that made history. Best voter turnout in forty years or a century, depending on your source. Record money raised and spent, although that can be taken as a positive or a negative. Record number of early voters by absentee ballot.
And the most important record of all: the American electorate finally crossed the racial line and elected a young, intelligent, articulate, and forward thinking man. And in the process, America elected Barack Obama the first African-American President of the United States.
La Petite was away at college, covering the election for the school paper. She had voted early. Her first presidential election, and she voted early because she knew she’d be busy on election day. We kept in touch by text message – the old fashioned kind of text message, with thumbs pounding out numbers multiple times to make the words. My thumbs, I kid you not, were sore.
As one state after another turned to blue on the map and the electoral vote total grew on Obama’s side, we sent each other texts that grew shorter and more and more exciting. When it was all over and she had finished putting the school newspaper into print and online, she emailed me and called the whole experience “… amazing. It’s going to be one of those ‘I remember where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing when I found out that Obama was elected as our 44th president’ type moments.”
Well, people, prepare for another one of those milestones. Will you remember where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing when the final word comes in? I’ve already voted. How about you?
