Vote Early. Vote Often.

One of my favorite random nights in college was the first semester of my freshmen year when I went to my friends’ (Jonathan and Jason’s) dorm room to watch election night 2000. I knew the night was going to be interesting because both of my friends follow politics like the Europeans follow the World Cup and they have polar opposite views when it comes to politics. But I had no idea it would be THAT interesting. There were many highlights, but none better than Dan Rather turning the evening into his own personal comedy hour. I don’t know if he had somebody write the lines for him, but he was on fire that night. My favorite line was “He swept through the South like a tornado through a trailer park.” When I finally called it a night at 2am, there was no winner. Little did I know there wouldn’t be a winner for a while. A long while.

This election I’m operating under different circumstances. For starters, I’m in Panama in a hotel in Santiago. As you know, that isn’t in the United States. I’m joined by some new friends, Jay and Julia, who have their own blog, which is fantastic. You can read it here. As well as, Jodi, a self described socialist, feminist, atheist liberal. You won’t believe this, but she’s pulling for Obama tonight. Finally, there is Duncan, who is a world class modern living Heian poet that goes by Diego in Panama; because they have problems they have trouble pronouncing his name. Besides, Diego is a pretty freaking cool name. You’ll hear more from him later.

So that’s the setup. Oh, we have some Domino’s Pizza and Budweiser beer. Needless to say, it’s an All-American night even if Budweiser isn’t totally American anymore. With the 6 o’clock hour striking, we have our first polls closing and the CNN political machine springs into action. Just like the States, we get to see the stupid beam in hologram of a correspondent. Like most of you I’m sure, even in Panama it seemed ridiculous. It would be cool if this technology was more readily available, though. For instance, it would have been nice to be beamed into my grandfather’s surprise 80th birthday party a few weeks back. Alas.

As Dana Bush pops on the screen, the group agrees that she looks like an alien. Seconds later we see our first West Virginia graphic. It shows Obama with an early lead. I doubt it lasts, but it would be nice if the result stood.

Sure enough it doesn’t. I left the room to get some wireless internet and talk with my parents on Skype. While chatting with my dad, the news broke that West Virginia was going to McCain. The news barely hit with my old man, because he was chatting with his boy for free, even though he is a staunch democrat who took me and my two sisters out of school to go to the Clinton inauguration because he was happy to see the end of 12 years of Republican rule.

As I head back into the room, I’m reminded of the contrast of the new world I’m living in now. While in the lobby, I’m surrounded by Spanish, but when I head back into the room, I’m back into the English world, complete with a well dressed Wolf Blitzer. Juggling the worlds certainly shakes your equilibrium.

Another interesting wrinkle of the night is I’m surrounded with people from diverse parts of the country. The people range from Kansas to Texas to New Jersey. So, when some state race pops up, every once in a while someone in the room will erupt. For instance, they just popped up a race in Minnesota and Julia who was born there gave the room a lesson that Norm Colman was a “total sleaze ball”. There’s a piece of information that I wouldn’t have known if I was in West Virginia right now.

As the path to the White House for John McCain looks unrealistic, the mood of the room is high. I think we were all expecting Obama to win tonight, but we *didn’t* believe it would actually happen until it did.

Well, at 11:00pm, it’s official! We just cracked up a fresh round of brews and toasted to the U.S.A. Since, this night won’t last as long as the 2000 night, I’m going to hand this over to Diego to put an end to this entry and this night:

Ol’ America
Just have to live free or die
Blue tide rushing in
Cherry blossoms spring anew
Can the shifting sands be real?