Jdavej’s Weblog

8:20 p.m. MST November 5, 2008

Salon.com called the election for Obama about 5 minutes ago!  Time to watch the landslide and the Congressional races.  Both Mark Udall and Betsy Markey are ahead here in Colorado, both of which will be pickups for the Dems!

Polls Closed in Colorado November 5, 2008

It is 7:16 here in Denver, and I am home drinking a beer, watching the results crawl in from the eastern states.   My job here is done and it is time to party.  As of right now,  CNN is showing Obama ahead 174-64 in electoral votes.  With Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and California accounting for 77 comfortable Obama EV’s, that is only 19 votes from President Obama!  It is so close I can taste it.  What an historic moment.

Election Day November 4, 2008

Election Day is finally here and whatever happens, we will make history this day.

It is 1:40 p.m. here in Denver–just over 6 hours before the polls close.  There is an air of quiet confidence throughout the AFL-CIO State Federation office here, where I am in charge of one of several phone banks calling people across this state to make sure that they have voted.  From the reports I am hearing from our satellite offices, and what I hear from my phoners, the great majority of people have already voted.  Reports from our poll watchers during the early morning rush said that there were only a couple of locations that had lines approaching an hour.  All of the other locations where we had people were reporting short lines and fairly light turnout through the first couple of hours.  That all fits the Secretary of State’s report that close to 50% of the eligible voters had voted prior to today, as well as our canvassers and leafleters reports of close to 85% of the people they were encountering saying that they had already voted.  And that kind of turnout generally bodes well for Democratic candidates.

It is an interesting feeling to be at this point where all of what I have been through in Colorado over the last five months, and all that all of us have been through over the past couple of years, is reaching its climax.  We are just hours away from crossing the finish line, and everything I see or hear tells me we are well out in front.  But now is not the time to let up.  If you have not yet voted, VOTE!  If you have already voted, call ten of your friends or family members and make sure that they have voted.  If you’ve done both of those, go to www.barackobama.com and follow the links to make more calls into battleground states to make sure those people have voted.

Finally, when the polls have finally closed tonight, take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, and head to a party to celebrate the beginning of turning our country around.  But, don’t party too much.  We have a big job ahead of us.  And it begins tomorrow morning.

Two Days Out November 3, 2008

So, it’s Sunday night, November 2, 2008.  Less than 48 hours from now, the polls will be closed across the country and all that will be left is to count the ballots.  I suspect by this time (10:45 MST) we’ll all know who the next President of the United States will be.  And, we’ll have a pretty darned good idea of what’s happening with Congress as well.  I happen to feel really good about where the election is at this point.  I may be a bit of an optimist, but I’ve also put my money where my mouth is and bought non-refundable airline tickets and hotel space to be in Washington, D.C. for the inauguration.  And I don’t plan on being there to see John McCain sworn in.

On the other hand, my much repeated quote is still operative–”I don’t want to wake up on Wednesday, November 5, wondering what one more thing I could have done.”  With anywhere from 2/3 to 3/4 of the votes already cast in Colorado (from what I have heard) there is not quite as much pressure on our Get Out The Vote effort as there might otherwise have been. But that is not slowing us down one bit in the effort to contact as many voters as possible to make sure that they have voted.  I can’t tell you complete numbers, but our release staff and volunteers have contacted 10′s of thousands of union and working-family supporting voters across the state in the last two days.  And we are just going to increase the effort and energy up until the polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.  

It is pretty darned amazing to see the people who are coming in, both those from Colorado and from out of state, and the determination that they have to make sure that this election puts the people in office that will begin to turn this country around. Whether it is the people like Ron and Mick, who are giving their time and effort, even while trying to find work, or the young woman attorney who came in this evening to make phone calls for an hour, sheepishly admitting that she feels like she should have been doing more, sooner, the determination to make sure that this election does not slip through all of our fingers is palpable.  

There is much about my experience here in Denver that has been frustrating and even infuriating.  But at this point, none of that matters.  Tonight, tomorrow, and Tuesday is all about making sure that all of the work of so many people over the last months is not for naught.  

Wednesday morning we start building a new world.