Interesting to be on the road the day after the election. Vignettes:
1. O'Hare airport the morning after the Grant Park address - a lot of bleary-eyed, happy people; some wore Obama teeshirts, some didn't have to. There were a few perceptible scowls on the faces of some well-dressed road warriors in the First Class line. May or may not have had anything to do with the election.
2. On the flight to Vancouver, sitting next to a man who'd been at Grant Park. He was filled with emotion about it - and he a "well-dressed road warrior" CEO of his own company. He'd walked behind MLK's family at the funeral procession in Georgia and equated being at Grant Park with it as the two most memorable days in his life.
3. Canadians seemed at least as pleased and excited about Obama's election as Americans - just the mention of the results would bring quite a bit of chatter in a hotel elevator with total strangers. Much more interest in that than the collapsing economy. They were very aware of Congressional dynamics, and seemed to know all about NC's election - wanted to know more about Dole v. Hagan and said they were crossing their fingers about the final NC count for president. (Can't say I know much about their political shifting around other than that the same conservative-liberal pushme-pullyou is taking place there, too.)
4. These Canadians were all wearing bright red poppies for Remembrance Day (Veterans Day) for the full week. They lost far more men than we did, but even so, I was struck by how anemic our "remembrance" seems to be in comparison. They don't seem to deem it a big shopping holiday.
5. Happier to return to the US from out of the country than I've been in a while. Under no illusions about whether NC has, in fact, turned "blue" for any length of time.... had Prop 8 been on OUR ballot, I hate to think what would have happened. But it's nice to feel that our friends across the border and across the sea are as happy as we are about the results of the election. I hope the hope is justified, but what a mess has been handed to the new regime.
