GRABBINGSAND

I didn’t do all that bad on my projections, actually. I called an optimistic 382 for Obama, and as of late this morning, 338 have been declared per CNN’s projections with a likely additional 11 from Indiana and 15 from North Carolina. Take away the 3 I missed in North Dakota, and my high call was off by only 18 votes. Not bad at all.

I knew that I would be extremely pleased with a win, any win, but that didn’t prepare me for almost melting into my shoes around 11pm last night. At 10:45pm or so, things were looking good. I knew that more projections we on the way, that we’d be closing the gap and making a McCain win mathematically impossible, but when the calls came in all at once … I just about lost it. We were watching MSNBC at Emily’s house — where we were four years earlier, actually — and with the change of the hour, the future arrived and hit me right in the heart. Surely, Nikki and I were depressed after Election Night in 2004, but I believe that we had so much more riding on this result in 2008. This was not a choice made between two lesser evils or even between something undesired and another that would be simply enough. So to see those numbers, to watch them rise steadilly, 284 to 299 to 333 … was to feel the weight of history give way to allow a rush of hope for a better future.

I’ve still not fully grasped everything I want to say or write. I know that I want to get to work. If there is a run-off between Senator Chambliss and Jim Martin, I want to volunteer for Martin. I want to be in DC for the Inauguration. And I want to continue to do everything I can to brush unwarranted dirt from the “liberal” label.

I am so proud of our President Elect. And I am so proud of my country.

Like I said earlier today in a MeFi thread …

We’ve had decent and respectable Presidents in my lifetime, but they’ve all seemed so far removed from where I live, how I think day-to-day. Too busy, perhaps, to know the music I know, to like the things I like … or maybe, to be concerned over the worries that keep me awake.

So it strikes me so directly that we’ve a President-elect so culturally aware as this. It’s not enough to say that Barack Obama is hip or cool. Anyone can fake the funk, so to speak. This man is different.

As soon as he said last night, “It’s been a long time coming,” I knew what he would say next.

Because at random moments this past week, I’ve been thinking about Sam Cooke. I’ve heard him singing in the quiet moments at work, walking out to my car, going to sleep. “But now I think I’m able … I’m able to carry on.” While Obama has been using Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher” at every campaign stop, the soundtrack of this effort has always been “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

And now it has.