At Home I'm A Tourist

I still have queasy memories of the 1992 UK elections, having run a couple of focus groups in an overheated room, and then retiring with my deeply Labour colleague to the hotel bar in Birmingham to watch the vote come in. The bar was full of big men in kipper ties who kept punching the air every time the Tories won. B. was somewhere in America, being sick in a toilet (food poisoning not elections, but somehow emblematic). I wasn't very political at the time, but even I knew it was a bad moment.

I will have my fingers and toes and everything else crossed for the US vote today. And y'know, through all your LJ posts I feel I understand some of what's going in the US election far more deeply than I otherwise would.

Today's Guardian newspaper front page has a photograph of two black girls at an Obama rally, one with tears streaming down her face, both faces shining with hope and anxiety.

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ETA:

I've turned into a total election wonk in the last few days. Later I will buy some kettle chips, salsa and beer. It may be a late night.

Replying to rhythmaning below, I think, although it's not my election, this particular moment in politics is so important to all of us, and I want to share it. I remember how the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; how I went to see Nelson Mandela at the freedom concert when he was released from jail, just to be there. Change happens. Sometimes we're privileged to witness it.

Over to you guys, to finish the job.