I also had an election night get-together. Actually, my wife and I have done so every two years for a while now. Last night’s was the most exciting, though, forsooth.

I’m not a man accustomed to overt sentimentality; however, looking out at a group of colleagues, friends, and neighbors watching the election returns until late into the evening on such an historic night, it is hard not to get caught up.

Not everything went well, though. We had a number of state constitutional amendments here in FL, and the results of several were very dispiriting. Typically, I tend to invest more in local elections over national ones; however, this year it is hard not to let the magnitude of the moment re-arrange things a bit. It helped to finally have a candidate on the ballot that I wanted to vote for, instead of having one that was merely a “better alternative”.

That alone makes a win more exciting. That — and the shear astronomical improbability that the democrats didn’t totally screw up . Does anyone other than me find the idea of a democrat having an extraordinarily well-run campaign a bit surreal?

Oh, she’s pretty darn chuffed :-).

I think there are millions, perhaps billions of people around the world who couldn’t vote in this election, but who are incredibly energized by and hopeful about this outcome. To have a President who understands that there’s a larger context and that we’re all interdependent (things corporate “America” has understood in a deep, deep way for years) is so refreshing after the past eight years. Watching the Twittering and blogs and e-mails of friends and acquaintances (defined in numerous ways) in the last 24 hours is wonderful evidence of how much these people care, and how happy they are both for us and for the rest of the world.

I assume Weather Girl, though she couldn’t vote, and didn’t actually say what her views on the matter were on your radio show, was very pleased as well. Hopefully we have made a move to heal our realtions with ‘the world’ as she put it. =]