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I’m sitting in a hotel room 9 floors above Grant Park, where Obama will be arriving shortly. The city is going nuts. I can hear the 100,000 people cheering from my room and horns honking like mad. People are even cheering in the halls right outside my door and they are walking down Michigan Avenue cheering.
I even shed a couple of tears when the projection was made. This is such a historic night. My friends, whom have this hotel room, are actually across the street at the rally. They stood in line with their tickets for an hour and half and finally got in a little bit ago. I wanted to be there so bad but I couldn’t take the boys, by myself, into that type of crowd. No way. We did walk up and down Michigan Avenue for awhile which is right across from the park and I did get a nice Obama button. I also saw a sea of Obama t-shirt clad people from ages 1 to 100. Literally.
I can hear the speakers at the rally from my room but their words are garbled so I rely on the ABC news station to show me what is going on. I want to be at the rally so bad… soooo bad, but I’m close as I can be. My boys finally passed out about 20 minutes ago so it’s quiet enough for me to listen to the rally from the hotel window. I’m sure I will know when Obama arrives; the crowd is going to go bizurk!
This night is surreal. It is unreal. This night is simply amazing. Right now the tally shows 306 electoral votes to 145. Wow.
Grant Park is complete mayhem. All I hear outside are the sounds of the El train roaring by and cheers from the crowds. There is something incredibly special about being here, in the middle of Obama’s election night headquarters, in the town he resides in, in the state he was a Senator in. The crowds and cheers are like those you would hear had the Cubs won the World Series. Instead, we are all gathered here, to celebrate politics, the American spirit and our freedoms…. and a hometown President, the first President to be elected from Illinois since Ulysses S. Grant.
The air on Michigan Avenue was filled with camaraderie, unity and total Obama dedication. It is STILL filled with it and probably will be for days to come. Even though I am not at the rally, even though I’m not standing amongst 100,000+ people, even though I will not see Obama speak in person, I am here. I will hear him speak from my open room window. I can tell my boys that we took as much part in the 2008 election night as we possibly could. It isn’t the same as actually being there at the rally, but it’s the best I could do. It is history and I can tell them in 20 years that they were right there… so close. I can tell them that they called our newest president Rocko Bottom. I can explain to them the magnitude of an election that this was.
The funny thing is, when I first saw him a few years ago I got this feeling about him. I just knew I wanted to follow him, believe in him. And, believe it or not, I also said, mostly to myself, that this man would be President someday. That is the honest to God truth. I am not right very often but sometimes I come out on top.
I can hear the lady singing the national anthem right now… Obama will be here soon.
God bless our country.
I live in Illinois, one of the 34 states that allowed early voting. It started on October 13 and went through October 30th. I voted on October 29th. I dropped my boys off at preschool at 12:30pm and arrived at the early voting place (my village hall) at 12:45pm. I had never seen that many cars at my village hall before. They lined the streets surrounding the hall in parallel formation and the rest were arranged neatly in the parking lot. I knew I was in for a long wait.
I walked inside to the lobby/atrium and was greeted with a small line of about 20 people. I began to think that maybe I was going to make it through this with out a problem! I got in line and looked through the glass windows behind the lady standing at the table and realized that I was not going to make it through. I saw why there were so many cars outside.
Behind those glass windows was the council chambers. There are about 100 seats in there, auditorium style, and every seat was full. Then I saw that the walls were lined with people. Standing room only, folks. My turn in line came up and I received a clip board and a blue ticket; my voting ticket. I was number 602115. I didn’t know what that meant until I got inside of the council chambers.
Number 602009 was called. I was 106 people away from being able to vote. It was nearing 1pm and I had to pick my boys up from school at 3pm which means I had to leave by 2:45pm. I was doubting whether I could make it on time. After about 15 minutes I realized they were calling numbers fairly fast and I started doing the math in my head. Ten numbers were called at a time and they were calling them about every 10 minutes or so. Then I got a headache from all that calculating and had to stop; it was exhausting. I decided to conserve my energy for my voting and just wait it out. Luckily I got a seat rather quickly so I was nice and comfortable. And by comfortable I mean squished in tightly with 100+ other people in seats that seemed to be made for people 110lbs or less as the temperature in the room seemed to crawl up to the 90 degree mark. The 300lb+ teenager sitting two rows in front of me did not fit in her seat and had to angle herself in order to sit. Oy.
Finally, at 2:15 my number was called and I was ushered into another room where I saw something I didn’t expect; another 30 people sitting in chairs and about 20 voting stations that were full. Good lord, I have to wait even longer in here? I turned in my voting application and was told to take a seat and my name would be called.
By 2:35 my name had not been called yet. So, in a desperate act I called my friend to see if she could go pick up my boys from school because I wasn’t going to make it. After that phone call my name was called. I got my little electronic voting card, a station opened up directly behind me and bam, I was voting.
I sat down and inserted my card into the slot and then the presidential candidate’s names popped up on my screen. I took a deep breath and stared at the screen for several seconds. My reaction surprised me, even, and wasn’t because I was unsure of who to cast my ballot for. Rather, it was because I was voting for the next president of the United States, the man who will succeed George W. Bush and hopefully turn our country around. I was voting in one of the most historic elections the country has ever seen. I was voting for the first black man to run the United States.
I took another deep breath and touched the screen where Barack Obama & Joe Biden’s names were. A green check appeared on the screen and I smiled. Then I moved on to the countless other names on the ballot and did the best I could. Before I knew it I was done and still had time to pick up my boys. I called my friend and told her to never mind and thank you.
That was an exceptionally fun 2 hours of my life that I will never get back.
However, those two hours of my life that I will never get back were happily given away. I would sit there again, waiting to vote, for 4, 6 even 10 hours. I don’t care. It is a privilege in this country and I enjoy that privilege. I don’t mind a little bit of disruption or annoyance to carry out my vote. So much more has been sacrificed to give me that privilege and right.
Tonight, a short 30 minutes north of my house, Barack Obama is holding a huge election night rally in Grant Park in Chicago. I was planning on being there with my boys but things changed and I probably won’t be. I am bummed but it was due to incredibly poor planning on my part. I really wanted to be there, living out a large piece of history, but I will have to settle for being 30 minutes away and watching it on TV.
So, today, I don’t care what your weather is like, I don’t care if you hate both candidates, I don’t care if you have stuff to do, get out there and vote. Vote for a write-in on the ballot. Vote for your own dog to be president. Just vote. Exercise the privilege given to you.
I know some of my readers are McCain/Palin voters. I don’t care. At least you are voting for someone whom YOU believe in. That is what matters.
Happy election day.
UPDATE! – It looks like I will be heading downtown tonight after all! I am staying with friends at their hotel which is right across Michigan Avenue from Grant Park. They have tickets to the Obama rally and will probably be going for a little while, depending on how chaotic things will be. And, they WILL be chaotic. My plan is to stay in the hotel room with the boys and watch from above. I may venture out into the streets for a little while, again, depending on how bad it is. I hope to have my webcam up and running and my laptop so I can live Twitter or blog about the festivities… depending on if it’s exciting and all.
The site I will be webcasting from is Stickam and all you have to do is sign up for a free account and then ask to be my friend. Do this as soon as possible so I can approve you quickly. There is also a chat function when you are watching so we can chat too. If you have any troubles email me at angelh28 (at) gmail (dot) com.
Again, I don’t know how exciting it will be but at least you will be closer to the fun. You may just see me yelling at the boys a lot… who knows:) This could end up being a completely lame ass disaster, but I will give it a shot, at least. I’m new to this whole webcam thing anyway.
