One Utah

I promised more election day stories.

Aaron and I were walking a precinct north of the Capitol building. As we reached the last house on our list, we knocked on the door were greeted by a cheerful, intelligent woman (a former advocate with Amnesty International!) who asked if we could put in her yard signs; she was having medical issues with her hands and was unable to use a sledge hammer to pound them into the ground. Aaron gamely grabbed the sledge hammer and pounded the signs into her yard; she said she’d like to volunteer with the campaign; so we got her name, address, phone, and email.

Okay, so we were poll checking and a reporter from the BYU daily news asked if he could interview us. We agreed. The interview was fairly straight forward; and Aaron a BYU student should get some great air time. The questions amounted to: Who do you support and why have given them your support?

Aaron had to leave at 3 to take care of some personal stuff, so I headed out alone to walk precincts. I hit every house in two precincts in the 90 minutes or so before heading back to campaign HQ where there campaign was in afternoon lull.

Voting basically occurs in waves: a rush first thing in the AM, a small rush at lunch time, then a big rush after work - about 5 to 7 p.m. Campaigns find themselves in a crunch during the evening rush; they want to poll check and contact their supporters who haven’t made it to the polls yet, at the same time, the polls are at their busiest and it is at its most difficult. You’re also facing a serious time crunch; you need to get your supporters in line to vote by 8 p.m. FYI, polls close at 8 pm, but anyone in line at 8 p.m. is allowed to vote- even if that means people are voting until midnight; seriously, if there’s a 4 hour wait at 8 p.m, everyone of those people has to be allowed to vote. In the afternoon, after you’ve done your afternoon poll checking and phoning - you have pre-dinner lull.  It’s your chance to organize your files, to reevaluate as needed and move on. I arrived at campaign HQ and the whirlwind of activity from earlier in the day had died down to a disconcerting restlessness. It was unnerving.

After taking care of some personal stuff, I returned to campaign HQ at 9 o’clock, freshly showered and dressed in clean clothing, I arrived to find a serious party, with press in attendance. At that point, I was told Becker was 16 points ahead! A few minutes later, the county website went down.

When the site came back up, there was another announcement:  we were still up!

The crowd was growing. It’s a cliche.  You could feel the buzz, a surge of energy, adrenaline, a rush of blood to the brain and the hands and the face. And then with a quick rush, a campaign worker came out and announced that Becker had 39 percent with a 13 point lead.  Then someone said, “KSL just called it for Becker.”

About 10 or 10:30, 99% of precincts had reported and the race stood as close to final as it could be. Matt came out and announced “Becker’s got 38.5%, Buhler at 27 and Wilson at 23%.”  Curtis said, “What was that?”; Matt repeated.  There was a roar and a round of applause.

Then the man himself stepped out the door and down the stairs to a round of cheers, applause, and chants of “Ralph! Ralph! Ralph! Ralph!” which vanished into a sea of applause and cheers. Then a really long silence as we waited for FOX to broadcast. Then a round of cheers. A while later, Ralph stood on the stairs to deliver his victory speech.  It was a great mix of gracious, progressive call to action, and personal.

I’ve been volunteering with this campaign since June  - a lot of folks there last night have been volunteering since June. There were tears and cheers.  There’s something about having been there for months, having walked precincts in July when it was 100 + degrees, having stood on street corners waving signs and seeing it pay off. The crowd you may have seen on TV or in the papers was cheering itself hoarse, clapping until everyone’s hands hurt.  Once in a while, the right candidate comes along and Ralph Becker has been the right candidate - I have no idea how many people volunteered yesterday to do pollwatching, but everytime I was there I saw group of 15 or 20 people heading out to poll watch.  Over the summer, I saw groups head out to walk precincts every time I was there - not just one or two people, but eight and ten people in a single evening or saturday morning.

The hard work starts now in the run up to the November general election.

This entry was posted Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Ralph Becker, SLC Politics, Salt Lake City. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.