For the festivities Natalie (a fervent Obama supporter) and I
headed to a bar at about 8:30pm. We were attending a London expat party in Shoreditch and it promised
to be packed which meant we needed to get there early. Actually it was supposed to be so packed they got a second
venue. From the pictures I would say that venue was more fun than my own.
The better party. Everyone at my place had suits on.
The better party. Everyone at my place had suits on.
In any case we sat there, drank and waited for the results to roll in. It was beer for Natalie,
but All-American brother Beam for myself. The Beam was actually a smart choice because it is
way easier to stay sober on bourbon here than beer. Just ask Natalie.
It was quite a long wait and quite a packed house. If it wasn't for the drama regarding our food we would have probably been quite bored. The biggest disappointment is that the crowd was not that American at all. I would guess less than half. I mean few people were wearing party colors while I racked my brain beforehand about which colors to wear. The internationalness of course meant that it was almost all Obama. In fact I kind of got annoyed at how people made fun of the few McCain fans present.
It was quite a long wait and quite a packed house. If it wasn't for the drama regarding our food we would have probably been quite bored. The biggest disappointment is that the crowd was not that American at all. I would guess less than half. I mean few people were wearing party colors while I racked my brain beforehand about which colors to wear. The internationalness of course meant that it was almost all Obama. In fact I kind of got annoyed at how people made fun of the few McCain fans present.
To clear it up I did vote Obama, but it wasn't a slam dunk for me. (I wore a blue shirt, but kept
the red socks just to stay grounded. Yellow would have been preferred, but technically I didn't vote
for any libertarians.) And while I am quite international and Obama would obviously go over better than
McCain it pisses me off just how certain outsiders are that only dumb people would pick McCain.
That kind of a assertion seems to display the same sense of arrogance that people have draw upon to create
their negative view of the United States. If you don't think we know what's best from others then how in
the world do you think you know what is best for us?
This feeling also surfaced during
the senate vote on the bailout package. News for that mostly consisted of BBC interviewing senators for 10 mins,
economist for 10 mins and then EU leaders going on for 30 mins on how they had to approve it. Whew, good thing
we listened.
Anyways the pain of all this is that his acceptance by the outside world is definitely
a solid check falling into the category of "Why to take a chance on Obama".
There really weren't too many distinct memories at the party. People we sat next to were drunk and mostly ranted about shit that I
didn't care about or made jokes that I didn't care for. I blocked them out as much as possible.
The most notable point was when I was outside writing an email before the big kick off and I had a
conversation with a couple of ladies who were from London and black. They felt like it would be forever until something
similar happened in the UK. It is hard for me to port this experience to another country because honestly
this is not something anyone would have predicted 8 years ago. In my mind, and I tried to explain this, it
is very much a case of the right person at the right time and he happened to be black. The fortunate thing
is that the US provided a unique environment for the right place and right person phenomenon to happen. I am
not an expert on the UK system yet, but it seem like it is much harder in the UK due to how the structure is
just more filtered. So even if the right person was there at the right time it doesn't mean they would settle
to the top. This point is actually being confirmed on the TV right now by politicos as I write this.
We also got into a discussion about why Americans don't know as much about international politics. This argument mostly involves scope of influence. UK knows about strikes in France because it directly impacts them. We know about strikes in California. The fact is that in many cases we just aren't forced (notice I didn't say "don't need to") to because the whole US is bigger than the the EU.
The demographics of this conversation also played into something else. I noticed the crowd as it was much more diverse than what I have seen here in general. Natalie will debate this, but I just write it off to the fact that I traveled the crowd more and most of the black people I saw were women. This really drove home the importance of his race. During the coverage they kept showing that 90 percent of people said that race wasn't a factor in their vote. I really don't agree with that number, but I don't credit that to people hiding their racism. I think it is the opposite. I would like to know what of that 10 percent considered race an issue and then voted for Barrack. That is what I think makes the 10 percent number incredibly low. For better or worse many of us thought about how it could be beneficial to society to have a black president. It just may not be the only reason you voted for him.
Oh and the coverage, my god the coverage here sucks. We had the BBC coverage. They did barely anything of value. All they did was echo ABCs numbers. No analysis whatsoever. Where was my fucking hologram BBC? Ok that was probably dumb, but still.
Our party ended at 3 so we headed out at 2 to be home for 3. We got home right as it was announced.
Obama is our new president.
We stayed (read I stayed up) for the following speeches. Actually Natalie woke up for Obama's.
McCain's was an excellent speech and paralleled his campaign exactly. His crowd was less than excellent and demonstrated how they ruined his campaign exactly. It further cemented the idea that he is a consummate statesman and would always do what is best for America. He took credit for the failure and while I definitely think his actions lost my vote, I am not sure how much control over those he had. The party just didn't give him any choices.
Obama's was of course great. That is one of the reasons we love him after all. The call to action reminiscent of JFK was great. The references to the opposition were great. The idea of nearly a million people hanging on every word in his hometown was great. There will be 4 years to see how that plays out, but that start was exactly what you expected when you voted for him.
When it was all said and done it was 5:30am on Guy Fawkes day and bed time for me.
Meanwhile in Seattle...
It kind of sucks missing big events like this. Technically the attitude of the people probably would have drove me insane, but by being in London I definitely felt like I was missing out on something special.
Finally I want to focus on how I feel this election was a transfer of the civil rights torch. Without a doubt we took a huge step forward in validating our forward progress on how race is viewed in America. However the fact that liberal states like California passed amendments to ban gay marriage made my jaw drop. Obviously these battles have been going on for some time, but the gravity of this decision is amazing. 20,000 marriages now in question. I mean the idea that a state would pass a bill prohibiting unmarried cohabiting people from adopting or serving as a foster parent just to stop gay couples adopting is insane. The mere fact that the measure had to be a blanket one just to not be discriminatory points towards the motives being blatantly discriminatory. I think many people don't want to see this as a civil rights issue, but the question of why it wouldn't be is a question we all should reflect on.
Oh yeah, technically I only voted for Obama because he likes the same sports teams. Go ChiSox. Go Bears. Go Obama.
We also got into a discussion about why Americans don't know as much about international politics. This argument mostly involves scope of influence. UK knows about strikes in France because it directly impacts them. We know about strikes in California. The fact is that in many cases we just aren't forced (notice I didn't say "don't need to") to because the whole US is bigger than the the EU.
The demographics of this conversation also played into something else. I noticed the crowd as it was much more diverse than what I have seen here in general. Natalie will debate this, but I just write it off to the fact that I traveled the crowd more and most of the black people I saw were women. This really drove home the importance of his race. During the coverage they kept showing that 90 percent of people said that race wasn't a factor in their vote. I really don't agree with that number, but I don't credit that to people hiding their racism. I think it is the opposite. I would like to know what of that 10 percent considered race an issue and then voted for Barrack. That is what I think makes the 10 percent number incredibly low. For better or worse many of us thought about how it could be beneficial to society to have a black president. It just may not be the only reason you voted for him.
Oh and the coverage, my god the coverage here sucks. We had the BBC coverage. They did barely anything of value. All they did was echo ABCs numbers. No analysis whatsoever. Where was my fucking hologram BBC? Ok that was probably dumb, but still.
On Indiana, honestly I was surprised.
Obviously I am not that connected anymore, but I really felt like this was something that the media was trumping
up to give us more to talk about. Guess I was wrong about that.
Our party ended at 3 so we headed out at 2 to be home for 3. We got home right as it was announced.
Obama is our new president.
We stayed (read I stayed up) for the following speeches. Actually Natalie woke up for Obama's.
McCain's was an excellent speech and paralleled his campaign exactly. His crowd was less than excellent and demonstrated how they ruined his campaign exactly. It further cemented the idea that he is a consummate statesman and would always do what is best for America. He took credit for the failure and while I definitely think his actions lost my vote, I am not sure how much control over those he had. The party just didn't give him any choices.
Obama's was of course great. That is one of the reasons we love him after all. The call to action reminiscent of JFK was great. The references to the opposition were great. The idea of nearly a million people hanging on every word in his hometown was great. There will be 4 years to see how that plays out, but that start was exactly what you expected when you voted for him.
When it was all said and done it was 5:30am on Guy Fawkes day and bed time for me.
Meanwhile in Seattle...
It kind of sucks missing big events like this. Technically the attitude of the people probably would have drove me insane, but by being in London I definitely felt like I was missing out on something special.
Finally I want to focus on how I feel this election was a transfer of the civil rights torch. Without a doubt we took a huge step forward in validating our forward progress on how race is viewed in America. However the fact that liberal states like California passed amendments to ban gay marriage made my jaw drop. Obviously these battles have been going on for some time, but the gravity of this decision is amazing. 20,000 marriages now in question. I mean the idea that a state would pass a bill prohibiting unmarried cohabiting people from adopting or serving as a foster parent just to stop gay couples adopting is insane. The mere fact that the measure had to be a blanket one just to not be discriminatory points towards the motives being blatantly discriminatory. I think many people don't want to see this as a civil rights issue, but the question of why it wouldn't be is a question we all should reflect on.
Oh yeah, technically I only voted for Obama because he likes the same sports teams. Go ChiSox. Go Bears. Go Obama.
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