A time for change

The circumstances were unusual, to say the least. Because the university scheduled the departmental review for election day, I was hosting a dinner for five visitors, each of whom had given up the opportunity to be with friends and family on this historic night. And because of the bad timing coinciding with equally bad timing of a conference, Rus was in Santa Fe.

So beginning with the first results coming in from the east coast as polls closed, we received a series of text messages, phone calls, and even reports via the waiter from the kitchen, where the staff in the almost-deserted restaurant were apparently listening to the election results on the radio. One of my visitors had his iphone tracking results via the CNN website.

It made for an incoherent discussion, but paradoxically, may have been a very good way for me to pass this night. When George W. Bush won in 2004, my pottery teacher could not imagine why, because no one she knew voted for him. So despite the fact that here in California I have not heard anyone arguing against Obama since-- well, I don't know when-- I have been brittle and on edge, sure that somehow there would be a flood of losses and this election would go, not just towards a ticket that is profoundly unqualified (McCain for his judgment in selecting Palin, and Palin, well, for general ignorance and divisiveness), but away from historical change.

When the text messages started coming-- CBS called it for Obama, then a steady string-- culminating in the news that McCain was conceding (so early! the one thing I expected was a long night...) we erupted, and I knew that no one wanted to stay in the restaurant. So I sent my committee off to the bar of their hotel while I paid, then joined them, and a crowd of university students, including some I have taught, all listening to the speeches, many of us weeping.

I cannot remember the last time I have listened to a political speech and heard the kind of inspiration we had last night. The echoes, deliberate echoes, of great speakers and figures in our history. Last year, the university sent all of the freshman and faculty Garry Wills' Lincoln at Gettysburg, and I read it-- an entire book about a single short speech. So I really heard those echoes, but I also heard Wills' comments about how the speech was transformative. I think we heard the same last night.