At last, I pick a winner

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Last night I watched the election returns in a Hells Kitchen apartment. I was with three women I grew up with in Palo Alto, one whom I have known since the third grade. The year was 1988 and we held a mock Presidential election. Palo Alto being a liberal hotbed, it was a landslide for Dukakis. And while the election didn’t go our way, I still remember the thrill of my first exposure to a Presidential contest. (It might have been at that point that I abandoned my plans to become an astronaut and decided to shoot for the presidency instead.)

Until yesterday actually, I still had yet to vote for a winning Presidential candidate. My first two elections were a bit of a disappointment: The first go-round in 2000, with its weeks in court and hanging chads, was a disheartening experience for a first-time voter. And although it appeared legitimate at least, the result in 2004 was perhaps a bigger blow, with “my fellow Americans” supporting a President I was sure was leading us down the wrong path.

Yesterday was different, and for many reasons beyond the obvious. To start, it was the first time I was working in an office environment during an election. On top of that, I spent the most heated months of the campaign working at Fortune Magazine, in New York City! Even when politics aren’t at the center of our discussions, there is an electricity that comes from being surrounded by people who are deeply engaged with the issues and events at this critical moment in history.

Another key difference was that it was the first time I was experiencing an election on the East Coast. Living out West it was always a bit anti-climatic. Since it was always pretty clear which way California would go, the results were usually predicted around the time our polls had just closed. This year when I sat down to watch after work, only three states had been predicted and I prepared to watch as alerts flashed across the screen and the map filled up red and blue.

After the speeches, instead of heading to bed with a sense of distance and resignation as I had done on past election nights, my friends and I followed the cheers of our fellow New Yorkers (and the European tourists) and set out for Times Square. At 1 A.M. we stood among the thousands chanting, hugging, and exchanging high-fives; the taxis and trucks honking; the billboard lights flashing and the marquee on the ABC building streaming images of our new President. Together with the young voters of my generation, I finally feel that I have a stake in the future of this country.

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