winners

I arrived in Philly on Wednesday, the night the Phillies won the World Series. Fans filled Broad Street, celebrating this win, which has been a long time coming (so they tell me. I can't claim true fan-dom.) On Halloween, there was a parade for the team which also filled Broad Street with people in Phillies shirts and hats. This city was already pumped before Election Day, so what do you think it was like last night when I walked out of the Doubletree Hotel after NBC called the election for Obama?

When I set foot on the sidewalk, I noticed the unseasonably mild air, and then the noise. Horns honking, people yelling. I kept moving further into it - crowds of people on the sidewalk, moving in on the passing cars heading up Broad Street, giving high-fives to people hanging out the windows with Obama signs. Someone was setting off firecrackers. Everybody was a body. The energy of the night was moving people out of their usual tightness into spontaneous smiles at strangers, dancing, crying, shouting, jumping and waving.

Back inside the hotel, the MoveOn.org election night partygoers were watching McCain give his concession speech. I couldn't listen. I was too excited about the street scene. Hearing me describe it, Jennine said, "Take me outside!" Jennine - my hero for the day - had been up until 3 a.m. the previous night finalizing plans for an election day get-out-the-vote effort involving over 100 volunteers who spread throughout the city to drive people in shelters, halfway houses, health care facilities, recovery houses, and low-income communities to the polls. She had spent hours and hours on end in a windowless room in north Philadelphia - doing things like figuring out how to get people in wheelchairs to their polling places. She needed to get outside.

Then my friend Susanna came outside, where we found a bunch of other familiar faces from the party and unfamiliar faces from anywhere. And people were banging pots and pans and chanting "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" and taking pictures and moving towards each other.

After a few minutes, we went back inside to watch the acceptance speech. Many of the younger folks in the crowd, including a bunch of the MoveOn staff, were gathered together on the carpet in front of the TV projection, cross-legged and gazing up at the scene at Obama headquarters in Chicago. It was like were were an extension of that crowd - clapping and cheering when they clapped and cheered. As if Obama could hear us. But really, it was important that we could hear each other, share a moment of relief and optimism.

So it turns out to be a good time to be in Philly. It turns out that people care about voting, about politics, about their political leaders. It turns out that we can find some common ground if we talk about not just what is, but what might be. Wow. I can still be a starry-eyed dreamer. How refreshing.

Props to all the folks who I know were busting their asses working on this election since the early days, including 2004 and 2000. Props to all the volunteers at Project H.O.M.E. who spent their day taking people to the polls. And big props to all the people who made the effort, stood in line for an hour or more at times, and VOTED! The hardest work is ahead, but I'm having some feeling - is it inspiration? Let's roll with that.