The U.S. election from a distance

I stepped into a dark pub last Wednesday morning with some expats to start watching the returns. I never left until 8 hours later and it was still sunny because we are now starting to have those long summer days here that last till March. Throughout the day more and more people kept coming in with television crews from two local stations. It got a little annoying when they asked us to turn the volume off while they filmed us in a pose pretending to watch and cheer. As it got crowded I began speaking with so many people, Kiwis as much as Yanks, and we of course talked politics. We were getting squished together and it was difficult to move with people sitting all over the floor. Everybody was ordering drinks for each other and I threw my “never before 5pm” self dictum to the wind. Today was special and I truly needed a few to counter effect all the coffee I had earlier. I just loved the conversations. One Kiwi told me he had grad degree from the University of North Carolina in American history, always my favourite subject, and we talked about the Great Depression and were the similarities to the situation in the world today. Some New Zealanders were there because they couldn't help but get caught up in watching this amazing spectacle and because, as I hear so frequently with the current economic crisis, what happens in the U.S. effects them personally. They talked about travel to parts of the States, like Seattle and North Carolina and I was curious to hear these people explain parts of my own country where I never been.

We watched CNN almost exclusively for the entire night. The only world news alternative was Fox News. CNN and Fox are delivered to New Zealand via satellite and early in the day there was a brief disturbance with the CNN broadcast reception and we watched a few minutes of Fox. Their reporter in Philadelphia was reporting on some Black Panthers standing in front of a polling station and I suppose that was meant to show that the Obama camp was going to intimidate the voters in a mainly Black neighborhood. We were able to return to the CNN broadcasts and watch the first use of holographic journalism. "Help me Anderson Cooper, you're my only hope!”. The first returns from the East Coast came in about 2:30pm NZ time. I took it as a good sign when New Hampshire went for Obama. It was supposed to be the only solid McCain state in New England and my friend Phil who lived there had told me a few weeks earlier that it was certain to go Republican. Then Pennsylvania was projected for Obama and the packed room cheered wildly. When Ohio was called for Obama not too long afterwards I knew that John McCain would never be able to get to 270. It got so crowded that it was difficult to see even the projection TV so I heard the reaction of the room first before I could read the type on the screen that said that CNN had projected that Obama would be the next President. The pub establishment then asked us to move to the main floor, for fire hazard fears, and we watched the final two speeches on two TV's that they had set up there.

But there was no fist pumping and no chanting, U.S.A., U.S.A when Obama spoke. It was as if all of us had to step back and to think to ourselves about the historic event that we had helped bring about. For me it was comparable to my experiences with other events that involved huge crowds. Like being in Central Park in 1981 and listening to Simon and Garfunkel perform and thinking how amazing it was that half a million people could get so quiet to listen to music that was mostly soft and plaintive. And again I had that feeling when I was at the Brooklyn Bridge centenary in 1983 where we joined thousands of New Yorkers from up and down the racial and economic gamut of the city to peacefully enjoy the most amazing fireworks I have ever personally witnessed. But that feeling Wednesday night was closest to that which I felt when Lucy, Bryan and I were at a friend's house on New Years Eve 1999. We watched the change to the new millennium, also on a wide screen TV, as time moved across the world starting of course, here in Australasia, flowing through to London, Rio and on to NY. And I remember feeling part of the larger world and to places that I had never been to and that it was so cool how we were all linked with this new technology as humans in this one world celebration. In the immediate days and weeks following 9/11/2001 I had bitter thoughts back to that night and cursed my naiveté. So much for the promise of a bright new era. And at my age I should have known better. But maybe now, even as we seem to be headed into the worst economic crisis since the thirties there is reason again to be optimistic.

Before we left Bryan peeled off the wall one of the Obama posters. That’s Bryan ever mindful of a good souvenir opportunity. Now Bryan was excited because it was also Guy Fawkes Day Night and there would be fireworks in a few hours. It couldn't have been better timed.