It was expected, but it still hurts. The Republicans won the governor's race. My biggest consolation is the good sense exhibited by my own city.

Results for Virginia:
Bob McDonnell (R) 59%
Creigh Deeds (D) 41%

Results for Alexandria:
Bob McDOnnell (R) 37%
Creigh Deeds (D) 63%

My excellent state delegate, Dave Englin (D), also won re-election. As did my neighbor, newly re-elected Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne, also a Democrat. So there were a few happy returns.


 

I just put in an hour at George Washington Middle School precinct, handing out Democratic sample ballots. Soon I'm heading over to Mt. Vernon Rec Center precinct to put in an hour doing the same thing there. In between, I thought I'd take the opportunity to say to you Virginians:

GO VOTE!

If you haven't done it yet, go do it now. And vote for Creigh Deeds for governor. Pretty please.

I'm having connection problems today. Thank you, Comcast. So I'm currently on LJ via a dial-up connection. You can imagine how much fun that is. I was hoping to post about the snarfari I went on yesterday. A snarfari is a historical-landmarks hunting trip. Each landmark you visit and photograph to log later onto the Markeroni website is called a "snarf." As I said, I had planned to post about it now. But this Internet connection is driving me crazy, so I think I'll wait and try again tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, if you're a Virginia resident, don't forget the Democratic primary for Governor, which takes place Tuesday. Voter turnout is expected to be low, so every vote makes a big difference. Get to the polls and vote! Haven't decided on a candidate? I'm supporting Brian Moran.

Fingers crossed....

I am sick to death of hearing people blame President Obama for the lousy economy. If you believe them, he's responsible for the collapse of the banking industry, for the budget deficit, for the poor performance of the auto industry, and probably for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Hello! The man has been in office less than three months. The economy tanked long before he moved into the White House. And you can harp about big-spending Democrats all you want, but the fact remains: The GWB White House spent more money than any presidential administration in history, including the Democratic ones.

It's no surprise that Republicans are blasting President Obama. What gets me is that the supposedly left-leaning liberal media is doing it too. A lot of my fellow liberals think this demonstrates a conservative bias in the media. I think it's more likely to demonstrate a bias for making money. Criticizing the president -- or quoting people who are criticizing the president, no matter how uninformed, self-serving, or peripheral they may be -- sells more newspapers and garners higher TV ratings than running stories that say, "It'll be months before we know if the president's policies are working." The other bias in the media is the bias toward keeping advertisers happy. And advertisers tend to be those same big businesses that were given a free ride under the Republicans.

We already tried ignoring the poor, cutting taxes, giving huge incentives to big business, denying reality, and spending trillions to invade countries that posed no danger to us. News Flash: It didn't work! That's why we voted in a new president who wants to try new tactics. Let's give those tactics some time to work.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I lived in a Republican state. By the time I went to bed last night, Virginia was Democratic! We already had a Democratic governor. But now we will also have two Democratic senators. My Democratic congressional rep was re-elected. And the state voted for Obama for president!

I am so proud to be a Virginian and an American this morning. I am laughing and crying. I want to burst into song: The Hallelujah Chorus or We Are The Champions, or anything by John Phillip Sousa.

I'm also so glad I've been volunteering for the Obama campaign. My first reaction to the news of his win was not, "He did it!" It was "We did it!" This morning I'm heading over to campaign headquarters for a visit from Senator-Elect Mark Warner.

I am so psyched.

We did it! We did it! WE DID IT!!!!!!!!

I spent much of today volunteering at the polls for Democratic party. My job was something called an "Indoor Poll Checker." Each party is allowed up to two indoor poll checkers (and one lawyer) inside each polling place at any given time. Election rules strictly regulate who is allowed inside a polling place, so I couldn't go in without an official letter from the local party chair stating that I was certified to be working there.

I had no idea any of this process even existed until they asked me last week if I would do it. I found the whole thing fascinating. The idea is to keep track of who is voting so each party can check the list of who has already cast a ballot against its own A-List of people identified as most likely to vote for its candidate. As the day wears on, if those people have not showed up at the polls, the party can call to offer them a ride or encouragement or whatever help they need to get them to the polls. So the indoor checkers listen as the election workers call out the name of each voter. Then we either write down the name or check it off a list from the party. The lists of who has voted are periodically passed outside to the "outside poll checkers" (and one lawyer), who reconcile the different lists and, by e-mail, send the names of those who haven't voted to locations where volunteers are poised to make calls or canvass in neighborhoods. At the same time, some of the inside people are also keeping track of how many people are voting altogether, just to make sure the voting stays honest and the numbers add up as they should.

My son had a half-day of school today, 10 a.m. to 2:30, so I told the party they could have me from 10 to 2. During that time I worked at two different polling places. Temple Beth El was very busy. The lines were long enough so that the election workers were periodically told to stop signing people in so that the lines at the booths wouldn't get too long to fit in the room. Then we'd have to stop for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes and wait for the voting booth lines to go down. Most people were in high spirits and were good sports about it. It was a little stressful for the workers because it was pretty crazy in there, but those who'd been working all day said this was nothing; it had been much, much busier during the morning rush hour.

When I was finished there, I had a little extra time before I had to get to the other polling place where I was scheduled, so I did a food run for the campaign's outside poll checkers and other workers. Then I headed over to George Washington Middle School, which is the polling place for my own precinct. My husband had voted there on his way to work this morning and said he'd waited in line about an hour, which wasn't too bad. But when I was there, from 1 p.m to 2 p.m., it wasn't busy at all. The lines were seldom more than a few minutes long; sometimes there were no lines at all. Speculation was that our precinct is so politically active that hundreds of us voted early because we'd be working at the polls or volunteering on Election Day. Informal conversations I've had with others in my neighborhood seem to bear this out. During the hour that I worked, only TWO voters came in who were not on my list. In other words, we're not only an overwhelmingly Democratic precinct, but we're overwhelmingly on the Democrat's A-List of people with records of donating to or volunteering for candidates, attending caucuses, and voting in primaries. In 2004 our precinct went something like 90% for Kerry.

I had to head home, then, to meet my first-grader's school bus. When he got home, he wanted to go to Krispy Kreme, which was giving away free donuts to anyone with an "I voted" sticker. We did, and we bought an extra dozen donuts so that he could help deliver me them to a polling place for the volunteers and other workers there.

Tonight I'd love to go to one of the official Democratic party return-watching events. But with a first-grader at home, that's just not going to happen. So my husband and I will watch at home tonight. He says he plans to drink heavily, whether in celebration or in misery! I SO hope it's in celebration.

I'm starting to freak out about this election again. For a long time, I thought McCain was going to win it, no matter what the polls said. Then the economy collapsed, and Obama seemed to pull ahead. I was optimistic. In the last few days, though, I'm sensing a shift in public opinion. I worry that some voters who thought they were for change are now getting cold feet, despite all the polls that say Obama has a commanding lead. I worry that long lines on Election Day may prevent hourly workers, disabled people, and women with small children from staying long enough to vote. I'm not saying I think McCain is necessarily going to win, but I do think it's going to be closer than a lot of the polls indicate, and that it could go in either direction.

Last night I saw AOL's latest weekly straw poll. This is not scientific; respondents are self-selected from the group of people who've accessed AOL, obviously not a random sampling of American voters. But this week's results are so lopsided that they're scary: McCain 57%, Obama 42%. In this poll, Obama wins New York City, Washington, D.C., and Rhode Island. McCain gets EVERY OTHER STATE. Here's a link to the poll results:

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/10/31/aol-straw-poll-oct-31-nov-4/

I'm doing what I can to combat this stuff. I've been donating money to the Obama campaign and volunteering for the Democrats for months. On Election Day I'm going to be a volunteer poll checker for the Democrats. We know Alexandria will go to Obama, but we're hoping to do it with huge numbers of votes, to help counter the large McCain vote expected in rural parts of the state. The way to do that is to identify likely Democratic voters and make sure they get to the polls and stay there until they've voted! Virginia is an important state this time; we really could go either way. So could the country.

I'm flabbergasted that some people are still undecided in this election -- even my own mother! I don't get it. This is not a choice between six of one and half a dozen of the other. These two candidates are worlds apart on almost every issue. Maybe it's because misinformation is so rampant, especially all the lies that abound about Obama. Surely, people who know the facts on both sides should see a clear choice in one direction or the other, depending on their own values, hopes, and fears.

I don't think I'm overdramatizing when I say that in this election we are deciding what kind of country we want to live in and what the role of government should be. If you haven't yet, please get out and vote tomorrow, no matter how long it takes. And vote Democratic.

Yippee! I voted. I've never been so excited to cast a ballot.

I decided I'd better do it early, because I'm working at the polls for the local Democratic party on Election Day, and might have trouble finding the time, if the lines are long. Alexandria has voting booths set up at the courthouse to let people vote early (technically an absentee ballot) with a minimum of hassle, probably to lessen some of the waiting time on election day.

I am proudly (and hopefully) wearing my "I Voted" sticker.

The last few afternoons, the first thing my son has told me as he's stepped off the school bus is the daily count of election signs spotted during his bus ride. Yesterday, he counted 67 Obama signs and 9 McCain signs. I know this is a poll conducted by a six-year-old and the results are not exactly scientific, but I'll take 'em.

I know I shouldn't be feeling good about the stock market collapse, but it's making me optimistic about Obama's chances of winning this. I've seen a huge shift in momentum the last few weeks, ever since the lousy economy became the big news. Obama even has a chance at taking my own state, Virginia, which has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1964. McCain may pull it out in Virginia; he still has a lot of support in the rural parts of the state, but Obama's gaining ground. Of course, my city of Alexandria is a no-brainer. We will go for Obama here, probably by a landslide. Alexandria always goes Democratic. McCain's brother, campaigning for him elsewhere in the state, recently told supporters that Alexandria is full of communists. We're not, but we are a Democratic stronghold in what has traditionally been a Republican state.

Another political upheaval in Virginia is that after this election we are almost certainly going to have TWO Democratic Senators. I know it made national headlines when Jim Webb won a Senate seat for the Dems in the last election. Now our other Senator, Republican John Warner, is retiring. And Democrat Mark Warner (no relation) is a shoe-in for his seat. He's wildly popular in his own right, and he's running against Jim Gilmore, who as governor ran the state into the ground so badly that even the Republicans aren't voting for him.

Now, if I could only do something about that one humongous eyesore of a McCain sign down the street.... Maybe I need to get a bigger Obama sign.

Is anyone reading this still undecided about the upcoming election? Or is anyone reading this actually planning to vote for McCain and Palin? If you belong to either group, you should read the transcript of this speech given last week by Bill Clinton at Central Florida University. Of course, it would be more persuasive if you could hear him; whatever else you may think of Clinton, the man knows how to work a crowd. But reading his words is the next best thing. I thought he did a nice job of telling people not only why they should support Obama but also why they should support the government bailout of Wall Street.

The presidential debate is tonight. And I'm feeling so much more optimist about this election than I have in months. Unfortunately, what's got me feeling better is the rotten economy, which can only help Obama. And it's not just the rotten economy, but the way McCain has responded to the rotten economy by falling completely apart. Has anyone else noticed how incoherent he's been lately? I really, really hope he gets trounced tonight.

****
In other news, I took my little boy on a road trip today to a dairy farm in Pennsylvania. It's called Hope Acres and it's a robotic dairy farm. There's this big climate-controlled barn full of cows, and the whole place is run by the cows themselves and some very sophisticated technology. A person puts food out for the cows every day. Besides that, there are almost no workers needed. The cows are even trained to milk themselves! No kidding. When a cow feels the need to be milked, she strolls over to the milking area, waits for her turn if someone else is using the equipment, and then steps into the milking booth, where she activates the robot and gets milked. Each cow wears a necklace that carries a unique electronic signal, and the robot is smart enough to identify the cow and not allow her to be milked if it's been less than four hours since the last time.

The cows have the run of the barn; they are not confined in little stalls. They sleep on waterbeds. And they can even get a robotic massage anytime they want, just by nudging the device.

I'm no dairy expert, but this was a weird and wonderful place! The cows sure seem to be thriving. Apparently it's much healthier for them to be milked when they want to be, rather than just twice a day like on most dairy farms.

My son's favorite part was the free ice cream we got after the tour. While in the barn, he was most interested in the robot that glides through the barn on a regular basis, scooping up the manure. What is it about 6-year-old boys and their obsession with poop?