This is a video of Hillary's victory speech on election night in Manchester, NH.
Tuesday, Election Day, was everything I thought it would be and more! Our wake-up call came at 3:30 am, which was a little rough considering I had arrived back at the hotel after midnight. I decided to walk downstairs and get some fresh air.
When I opened the door to the hotel hallway, a copy of Tuesday's USA Today was located by our door. I picked it up, and, to my dismay, I found a new New Hampshire poll on the front page. I didn't write down the exact numbers, but I believe it was something along the lines of Obama 42, Clinton 29. There were a few other polls floating around that showed Obama opening up a lead, yet there were a few others that showed Senator Clinton down 3-6 points. I had not seen any polls over the past few days with Senator Clinton in the lead.
It was definitely deflating to see that poll, but I did remember back in 2000 that the New Hampshire polls showed George Bush and John McCain deadlocked going into the primary. McCain won that race by a 49%-31% margin. There was a little hope for us; also, despite the polls showing us losing ground, this was completely unnoticeable on the ground on Sunday and Monday. The crowd at the Nashua high school on Sunday was overflowing; there were thousands of people in line to get in to the event. Furthermore, while doing visibility, we were getting "honks" at a rate of 3-1 or better from drivers when we were situated near the Obama folks, primarily from women. While I was skeptical of anyone that suggested that we were leading or that we would win, I did feel that we would not do quite as poorly as the polls suggested.
Our ride showed up a little later than expected and we did not get into the office until about 6 am. We were given a list of supporters and some door hangers to place on their doornobs, reminding them to vote. After lunch we were dispatched to a polling location in Nashua to do visibility. We were expected to do well in Nashua, but I was floored by the response we were getting while waving our signs along a busy intersection. There were about a dozen Obama volunteers/staff and only three of us, yet we were getting almost all of the honks! It seemed like every woman between 30-60 was honking when passing us by. I ended up making a phone call to someone I knew "in the know" and was told that, according to their numbers, we were within two percent of Obama based on exit interviews. At that point, I think all three of us got a second wind and we did not let up for a minute. In fact, after we went back canvassing, we practically had to restrain Debbie at 7:55 pm so we could go back to the office :) I was practically a cripple by the time we got back into the office. (I had blisters on both feet and a pretty bad knee sprain that was acting up from a few days before.)
One other note too...we were checking on supporters to make sure if they voted on foot (and practically stalked the homes of those not home); out of the 50-75 houses I visited personally, only one had not voted and they were just waiting for their wife to come home from work. (I later saw them walking to their polling location, which was only a few blocks away from their house.) At this point, I knew we were in the game. We were getting our vote out!
Most of our USF crew was too exhausted to hang around, so they went back to the hotel to watch the results come in on election night. Me and Debbie hung around the Nashua VFW post, our staging ground for the day, to hear the local results. Hillary carried all nine wards in Nashua and received 118% of the vote goal set for the local office! Also, despite results coming in from rural areas, suburbs, and college towns, Senator Clinton's lead was holding up. Debbie, our friend Kim from Nashua, and I decided to go up to Manchester for the victory rally, having faith that we were going to win. About midway to Manchester one of the major news networks called the race for Hillary! WOOOHOOOOOO!
I also wanted to take a minute to say something about our new friend Kim. A lot has been said about how Barack Obama has inspired young people to vote and/or caucus in large numbers and there is certainly a lot of truth to it. But there's another story here as well. Kim had never voted in her life. She heard Hillary speak and it inspired her to act. She registered to vote, volunteered for the campaign regularly (long before we were around), and she even took a friend with her to the polls. Senator Clinton has inspired new voters as well; I think many of the pundits mistakenly thought that Obama had a monopoly on these new voters. Something special happened in New Hampshire, and almost all of us (including myself to a degree), didn't see it coming!
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