For the last two days of the presidential campaign I drove down to Philly to do whatever was necessary. Among the many good things I was able to accomplish, I also spent way too much time driving around lost. Being lost really became a theme for my trip. But alls well that ends well.

This was my first election where I didn’t have enough time to get to know the people I was working with. Because I didn’t come down with a group and drove down alone, I ended up in different locations often as a single agent. I worked one shift with someone who had never voted before. Next I was sent to do poll watching but the polling place was already covered. Then I did some leafleting alone until 4 people on a bus trip from Brooklyn showed up. Then I was sent to a new staging location at a Baptist Church where I worked one shift with an older religious woman who had never canvassed before, but was no stranger to volunteering. At five she went home to make the family dinners.

 I did my last shift alone in the dark and then got very lost finding my way back to the church. Then with the days work done, I got horribly lost again going back to my hotel. I ultimately made it downtown toward my hotel, but I continued to be lost. I knew I should be going south, but somehow always ended up heading north.  At some point I think I even caught myself unconsciously perpetuating my lostness. It had started to seem like being lost was my normal state.

Ultimately, I finally made it back to my hotel. I turned on the news and opened a beer. It wasn’t conclusive yet, but the election was looking good. Then I soon made it into a cab to seek out the parties at the Loews and Doubletree hotels.

The Loews seemed lame. All of the TVs were cranked up, but you couldn’t hear anything. Not only did the room echo, there was a DJ trying to play music at the same time. It was maddening. The crowd seemed well dressed but cold. I sensed that there would be speeches soon but I chanced that I could walk over to the Doubletree in time.

The Doubletree was definitely the place to be that night even if they were only serving cheap wine and domestic beer. The crowd was lively. Many people were dancing, cheering and hugging. The crowd momentarily settled down to listen to John McCain. It was a good speech, as gracious as it could have been. The crowd was gracious too and even applauded on a couple of occasions.

After McCain’s speech, people started assembling in the streets. I don’t know the name of the street, but I do know that traffic was blocked for a long time as people came out from wherever they were to yell, and hug and unplug for a respite of human jubilation. It was an amazing outpouring of emotion.

I made it back to the big screen TV at the party just in time for Obama’s speech. Everyone seemed transfixed if not in a bit in shock that the country had conclusively turned a corner by turning it’s back on continued Republican rule. And wow what a speech. What a thing to witness.

I felt like hugging strangers, but I talked myself out of it. It felt a little lonely. But really, despite the sense of loneliness, of feeling disoriented in unfamiliar territory, it all felt damn good at that point. The country could finally begin to move on from the Bush years, having finally voted overwhelmingly to no more of the same.

After that I stayed up too late watching the news and trying to figure out the Senate races.  I spent the next morning and early afternoon trying to expand my sense of history by walking around Old City. I went to Ben Franklin’s burial site, the Liberty Bell and some other things I could do for free of almost free. I wanted to soak in some more history, some perspective to the history I had just witnessed.

In walking around Philly’s historic attractions, I thought a lot about the last eight years. I also thought a lot about being lost so much during the last two days and about being earnestly involved in a huge group effort for something I believed in, but feeling alienated from it at the same time. I thought a lot about the country, it’s founding and the road map documents it created and how often it had lost its way from it’s own ideals.

In some way that day I started to make a connection that in so many ways it wasn’t just I who had been driving around lost for the last two days, but the whole country had been driving around lost for the last eight years.  Like I felt on election night, under Bush, the feeling of being lost became the country’s normal state.

But this election not only represents the righting of so many wrongs, it is a true change of direction. I think everyone is tired of feeling lost and wants to believe that the mighty ship of state can begin to correct itself.  I hope that Obama has a keen sense of direction and knows the best map makers on earth. And I hope that now as a country we can start to believe that we can start finding our way back home

It’s time to put on your volunteer hats!

I don’t think this election is in the bag at all. I was in Bethlemen, PA on Saturday. Most people seemed receptive to Obama. The campaign seems very organized on the ground. But despite whatever the polls in the media say, the campaign’s internal polling shows Obama up by only a few points.

Last week the Times ran a little story charting the percentage that candidates were up in the polls toward the end of October versus what they actually won or lost by. The most frightening number to me was from the campaign for Clinton’s second term when he was up by 30 points toward the end of October but only won by 16 points.  Right now Obama is only up 14 points in the polls which is the same percentage that Clinton lost between the end of October and election day. And with Obama being a relatively unknown quantity to most people and all of the fear mongering that is going on, who knows what will actually happen on election day.

I cannot look at this as anything but a very tight race, no matter what the polls today say. And that is where you and I come in.

I hate to play the fear or the guilt card, but think of how you will feel if you wake up on November 5th with McCain as president and you did nothing to stop it?

Please forgive me if I am being a pompous ass in reminding you of things that you are already taking care of. But this is a real do or die moment in American democracy. A McCain presidency is simply unthinkable.

The most important thing you can do is volunteer. Most of the volunteer efforts are being handled by the campaign this year. Go to MyBarackObama.com to sign up.

I found this great web page that can help you find out if you are registered or not. It’s been created by a group called Voters Unite.

I was looking for such a tool because I wanted to know if the registration of my friend who had recently moved had been updated. It turned out that it was.

Then out of curiousity, I thought I’d check my own registration. I was very surprised that after I entered my name, county of residence, zip code and birth date that there was no record of me. This was surprising because I’ve voted in the same place for almost 10 years. And it’s doubly weird because I have already received my absentee ballot since I will be traveling on election day.

The best I can figure is that my registration didn’t show up because of a clerical error in the database; that there is some discrepency in my name or birth date. These are the types of discrepencies that massive purges of eligible voters are made of. And even though I have already received my ballot and am confident about being able to vote in my usual voting place in another election — because the online database shows no record of me — I fear that I am already on my way to having my name be purged from the rolls someday.

Are you registered or do you just think you are? Go to Voters Unite to find out.