Closing thoughts

Was it worth it?

I think so. Yes, our guy didn’t win. But I feel like I did what I could for the cause. I was in the right state, the one it all came down to. I helped out with an effort that achieved a truly ridiculous voter turnout for a relatively small town. I got to work with some amazing committed people on something we all believed in. I feel like I did something.

I’m very disappointed with the election results. I think the next four years could irretrievably damage this nation, both fiscally with the insane deficit and legally with the Supreme Court implications. But, as my LiveJournal post from the morning after indicates, we can’t give up. We need to start organizing now to take back Congress in 2006. Maybe a couple of the more liberal Justices can hold out until then, and we can at least get a Senate in place that won’t rubber stamp an arch-conservative. Maybe.

In closing, I just want to say thanks to everybody who made this trip possible:

Thanks to Brian for getting me to go by deciding to do it himself.

Thanks to Rob and Elizabeth for giving Brian and me a place to crash, and feeding us, and getting us involved with Oberlin Votes!

Thanks to Ken and Marta for organizing Oberlin Votes! and for their hospitality.

Thanks to Annie, Megan, Jeremy, and all of the other great volunteers we met working with Oberlin Votes and Ohio PIRG. It was inspiring to see a dozen people in the lobby of Wilder making phone calls, with another dozen running around campus knocking on doors. People do care. And that’s awesome.

Thanks to all of the students and residents of Oberlin. It was really inspiring to see a whole town out voting, waiting through five hour lines in the rain. And to see the community come together, with people chipping in food and water to give to the people waiting in line and people coming out to entertain them, like the jazz combo that was playing at the public library. It wasn’t just me that was impressed: the local news crew came by and took some footage, and even interviewed the last person to vote in Oberlin, the Cleveland paper sent out a reporter, and Oberlin was mentioned on both the local and national feeds of NPR.