My First Election Night Party

So I’ve noticed that most of my blogging buds have given some account of their voting day. I guess I’ll do the same.

The voting part went so easy it almost felt anti-climactic. I left work early to get to the polls due to the reports of long lines, and just because it was a good reason to leave a little early. When I got to my polling place, there was no wait. I went in, got my card, went to the touch-screen machine and was back out in maybe 3 minutes. No fuss, no muss. Pretty boring account, eh?

The fun was after. I was invited to go to the Mayor’s Election Watch party at her restaurant downtown. It was to start immediately after the polls closed. Now, I’ve never been to a gathering of actual party officials who were really into what was happening with the election returns, so I decided I needed to check it out. The Mayor is a devoted Democrat and she thought it would be interesting for me to show up, mostly because we’ve had a running dialog for approximately 2 months on who should be elected President. I had been struggling with the decision and she had been trying to persuade me to her view.

So just because I wanted to experience something new I decided I had to go. And just because I’m me, I got a Bush/Cheney sticker for my chest and headed down to the restaurant. Once I arrived, I had a moment of second guessing my decision to have the GOP advertisement on my chest. The place was jammed and there was only me and one other person that had braved to be opposite. Turns out the Republican poll watchers were all gathered elsewhere. (Nah, elections don’t divide the people.) But the moment was gone quickly and replaced with my usual calm, make waves persona taking over.

I went in and went straight to the bar, where the crowd was heaviest. I got a Coke and started finding conversations. The Mayor came over for a few minutes to say hi, but that was pretty much all the time we had to talk. She was so busy with restaurant operations, making announcements as returns came in and just generally floating through the crowd, I’m sure she’s pretty worn out still. She did raise her eyebrows at the Bush sticker, but never asked whom I decided to vote for. I’m sure that will come soon enough.

To make a long story short(er), it was quite the experience. Having the GOP sticker made me a target for lots of conversation and some needling. I met many good people, was even more impressed with our Mayor, and got a newfound respect for the politically motivated. I was even asked to help with the Mayor’s re-election campaign coming up next year. That should be interesting.

There was one exception to the pleasant evening though. (Isn’t there always?) A seriously belligerent Bush hater came up to the guy I was talking with, (the other guy with GOP stuff on) and started yelling in his face about how he was a hater. How he was involved with keeping the black man from voting and keeping the minorities away from the polls. He was freaking out about how anyone like him would kill babies (?) just to force their way on someone. He went off! It was weird because after he was gone I asked the guy if he knew him but he said he’d never seen him before. Turns out the Bush guy is a big part of the Mayor’s campaign staff. He strongly supports her and she is a Democrat. He's registered Independent. The freaky guy just assumed that his target was a hard core conservative, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. That was kind of a downer because I believe generalizing is wrong. We all do it sometimes, but mostly I try not to. Assuming you know someone's insides by their outside is just stupid. After all the decent conversations and sharing of viewpoints, he shows up and brings the immediate crowd conversation to a stop. Bummer.

All in all, it was an interesting day. I guess I’ll keep on checking out the local political scene. So far, it’s keeping my attention.