Election 2008: The Morning After

We know sports. Despite not being reporters with locker room access, and not making a living off of the business, what we know at VendorBall is sports. However, when an election of such epic proportions lands on our doorstep, we feel obligated to express our opinion on the matter. Sports and politics usually do not intersect unless we're talking about the General Manager of a sport, or discussing the steroid trials at Congress. But last night, for the first time ever, I was watching an election that felt like a major sporting event.

We raised our glasses (er... well bottles/cans) at every Obama victory - loud for states like Massachusetts where we knew he'd win, and louder still when he took Ohio and Pennsylvania. High fives, jeering at the opponent, and progressive drunkenness in front of a TV late on a Tuesday - I could have been watching the playoffs. And that's how it felt. Politics had achieved a level of passion I have yet to see in the five elections I have been lucky enough to witness and remember.

We will not call it an "historic election" as everyone else seems so keen on doing. It was an election and we do this every four years. "The first African-American ever to win the presidency!" Well, he's half. So he's half of the first African-American ever to win the presidency. Or the first half... whatever. It was not an historic election - it was a historic outcome. Only 50 years ago, African-Americans had fire hoses turned on them for peaceful displays demanding equality. So in that sense, we've come a long way - even though it was a win that even our resident republican expected, it was truly something we've never seen before.

And speaking of republicans, McCain's eventual concession speech was a marvel. For a heated election, he hushed boos aimed at Obama and even had me believing that he thinks Obama will make a good president. We were all pretty sure that McCain didn't believe in Obama, but he changed the minds of many, and reminded us that we are all Americans. Seeing him stand up there in his awkward way, saying "my friends" in that creepy voice was familiar enough, but what he said was a testament to his character. Through this election I had managed to forget that I like McCain. I think he's a good senator and was rooting for him to come out of the Republican primaries. It's nice that things can fall back to normal.

On the other side, Obama's acceptance speech was the magic we have come to expect every time he takes the podium. I felt having to see Jesse Jackson and Oprah over and over again was annoying (we get it, first black president, we're proud too) and took ever so slightly away from a night that should have been 100% Obama's (not 99.99%). But he was gracious, elegant, and powerful in his speech, and Americans everywhere hope he will be just that way for four years in the oval office.

So as we wind down the last two and a half months of the Bush presidency, we at VendorBall will move back to sports, likely not to adventure into the world of politics again for another four years. But for one night, politics felt like home to us.