Election Night: A Reporter’s Notebook

Greg Dobbs, co-founder and executive editor of BoomerCafé, has been a journalist for four decades but reporting alongside Dan Rather for HDNet on the landslide election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was a monumental event in his career. Here is Greg’s candid and personal perspective on a historic time in America’s history, written as a letter to family and friends.

Dear Family and Friends,

I write from Washington DC, the morning after. Not normally the origin of my letters to family and friends, which most of you on this list have gotten. The last few I’ve written were from the Middle East, before that from Russia, with letters from China and South Africa before those, describing important or exotic places to which you’ve probably never been and sharing observations about them that you might not otherwise hear. But this is not that kind of letter. Not quite, anyway.

This is a letter about an extraordinary experience I had yesterday, the day of the election. I’m in Washington because I got to be a small part of HDNet’s Election Night coverage, anchored by Dan Rather. Dan was in a studio at the “Newseum” on Pennsylvania Avenue with a first rate group of political analysts; I was in our “war room” a few feet away, tasked with reporting on two specific topics: I handled voting irregularities (and there were lots of them, but in a nation with 170,000 polling precincts and a massive enterprise run by government, what else would you expect? Anyway, there was nothing consequential on the order of Florida, 2000, that would change the outcome). And, I handled interesting or important ballot issues from different states (like abortion, and stem cell research, and affirmative action, assisted suicide, immigration, same sex marriage, taxation, and tying teacher pay to performance … although the one that amused me was the question in California, Should certain farm animals have enough room to sit down or stand up and extend their limbs and fully turn around in their living space? Creatures like hens, calves …. and pregnant pigs! Californians said yes…although egg farmers and others say it’ll cost them more than they can afford to spend).

I won’t kid you; as many times as I’ve been involved in the coverage of a presidential election, I still get a kick out of it. In fact a New York Times reporter was in the studio about half an hour before we went on the air, when Dan and the executive producer gave a pep talk to the forty or so people involved with the upcoming marathon six hour broadcast; you might be interested to know, Dan Rather’s message to the behind-the-scenes staff, some of whom he himself didn’t know, was that they should treat every piece of information impartially, and that in everything they would do that night, they should put aside whatever personal projections they had and do what the public looks to us to do: just report what we learn, without attaching whatever hopes or disappointments we are feeling. And when Dan was through, I chimed in, which I’m flattered to say the Times journalist included in her report. What I told my colleagues, most of whom are a generation younger than I am was, cherish the moment. Not because your candidate, whichever he is, might be our nation’s next leader, but because it is both a thrill and a privilege to get to contribute to what the nation learns about the outcome. I told them that from my own involvement in campaigns past, it is an experience they will never forget. The fact is, I can still regale you with details of presidential campaigns clear back to Nixon-McGovern in 1972, which I covered as a young producer — one of Hunter Thompson’s “boys on the bus” — for ABC. Don’t worry though; I won’t. (By the way, Rather and I were talking before we went on the air, sharing “war stories” as journalists tend to do, and his first campaign was Eisenhower, 1956! Wow.)

Anyway, with the presidential results proceeding as they did, I got very little air time relative to what I was prepared throughout the night to report, and that was frustrating. Kind of like cooking for a banquet but only having a dozen people show up. As a citizen bucking for Barack Obama, I was pleased of course with the outcome of the election; in fact, “pleased” is an understatement. But nonetheless, when I left the studio with a few members of Dan’s New York staff at about 1:30 this morning, I walked out feeling bummed. Lots of productivity, not enough product. But the first honking horn in this buttoned-down city forced my frustration to retreat.

Why? Because there wasn’t just one horn; there were maybe thousands. As we walked down Pennsylvania Avenue on a damp but mild night from the Newseum, which isn’t far from the Capitol, to our hotel, which is just two blocks from the White House, the streets were wild. You’d think the city was celebrating the World Series. But it wasn’t (and you baseball fans must agree, it probably never will!). It was celebrating the outcome of the election. I know Washington; I’m here a lot and have been over many years, and ours was a route that would normally be off limits to everyone but muggers and rapists at that dark hour of the night. But for those hours last night, it was a city transformed.

The closer we got to the White House, the noisier it got. Not just along Pennsylvania Avenue, but up and down the numbered streets running into it. Maybe it’s like this the night of every election, the victor’s supporters filling the streets of our cities. Maybe I just haven’t been out in the right places at the right times. But I don’t think so. I don’t think we went hog-wild when Nixon won, or Carter, or even— in the way it was last night— when Reagan became president, or the first Bush or Clinton or even— aside from a surfeit of “amens” (the campaign rallies I covered in 2004 were full of them)— the second Bush. People driving along, windows open, honking and screaming and celebrating. Most were young, but by no means all. And they weren’t just in cars. Once we were within sight of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they were jamming the sidewalks too. As if they just didn’t want to go home. Maybe that’s how Barack Obama felt as well, knowing that once he went home and went to sleep and got up this morning and had to start thinking about how he’d govern, the euphoria might give way to the reality. As a good friend, quite conservative, wrote to me in an email, “We the conservatives, say to you the Liberals… you once again have the keys to the Kingdom. Let us all… please see a better nation. More jobs, better education, health care, safety from terrorism, world peace, tax cuts, greater prosperity, less greenhouse, energy independence, helping of the needy and so much more.”

Can Obama deliver all that? Only when pigs fly (except pregnant pigs in California, which won’t have to). I know that. Unless we live in a cloud, we all know that. Even Obama, past the point of euphoria, knows. He must. But my support, the support of most voting Americans, the support of the celebrants last night here in the streets of Washington and across the country, wasn’t just based on the hope that Barack Obama’s policies will be a magic brew. And they weren’t based on a discredited notion that we can all just shut our eyes tight and hope really hard that we’ll beat this bad economy and successfully end our wars and overcome the divisions that have split friendships. No, not at all. They were based on the qualities of leadership. Qualities I’ve long said were what made Ronald Reagan a great president. He knew how to inspire Americans. To give us hope. Not all of us wanted him to take the country everywhere he took it, but many of his journeys were certainly in our best interests and gave us security we hadn’t had.

I’m not going to re-litigate the George W. Bush years; given the basement level readings of his popularity, even if you are still in the minority that is glad he is our president and sorry to see him go, I don’t have to. Yes, I do give him credit for keeping our country safe in the long aftermath of 9/11, but I don’t give credit to the war in Iraq for achieving that. To the contrary, it has weakened us. “Homeland security” and all it entails, that is why we have not been attacked. And, to a degree, the attack on Afghanistan, although obviously its execution fell far short of its purpose. To be honest, I’m not sure a President Gore would have had the guts to go after our enemies with the zeal that Bush did. Who knows how many more Americans would have died if Gore had won and hadn’t been nearly so aggressive? On the other hand, who knows how many more Americans might be alive today if Bush hadn’t taken us to Iraq? (Okay, that was a touch of litigation, but no more.)

What Obama does, Obama will do, either liberated by a strongly supportive Congress or tempered by an independently cautious one. We shall see. But in the midst of the crowds last night, I was struck by what might be one of his most difficult challenges. Somehow, from coast to coast, supporters felt that as individuals, in a collective, they would make a difference. For the election, they did. For the betterment of America, they might not. Whether you wanted Obama to win or not, there are so many things working against us. Obama’s hard challenge will be to somehow satisfy the expectation of millions of Americans to feel like participants in the change he promised, if not to actually harness it. Like everything else he’s going to face, that’s more easily said than done.

Then, there are those of you amongst my friends (and family too), and those like you, who are scared. Scared that he’s a Socialist, scared that he “palled around with terrorists,” even scared by the fraudulent fear-mongers who would have you believe that Barack Obama— who got in so much trouble for his longtime association with the preacher of a Christian church who spewed so much hate— is a Muslim, which conjures up all kinds of possibilities. For my money, Obama’s loyalty to Jeremiah Wright is the most indictable of his mistakes. But his association with Bill Ayers was in common with the bedrock establishment of Chicago. As for being a Socialist, I’m sorry, I don’t want to insult anyone who’s reading this, but if that’s what you believe, you don’t know the meaning of the word. Socialism is embraced by people who think that government should own a nation’s industries (think: big bailout, and all its bi-partisan support), and that everyone should earn the same amount. I read a logical comment in a recent column, the writer pointing out that if you stretch Obama’s comments about “redistributing the wealth” to being the equal of Socialism, the ultra-rich Warren Buffet might have real problems maintaining his support! Redistribution of wealth means different things in different places; in our country, it means a different kind of tax system, depending on your political party, and yes, more government services versus less. But both parties have long maintained the progressive tax system we already have, based on the principle that we who are richer are the beneficiaries of more of what government does provide. Literally, we have more to protect. That’s not just a platform for Democrats; Republicans have long supported the system we have as well. Although if that’s all it takes for you to call is Socialism, then I guess every Democrat in the country is a Socialist. So be it.

And while I’m on the subject of Warren Buffet, one of Obama’s most prominent and widely admired supporters, I’ll bring up another one: Colin Powell. A conservative friend of mine, who has the nation’s best interests at heart as I do but would achieve them differently, has angrily derided me a couple of times during the campaign, charging that by supporting Obama, I was sacrificing the security of our country to terrorists. Obviously I believe from my fairly long and broad experience around the world that if we are more widely admired, we have one of many necessary tools to combat that threat. This is true for cultures that are vastly different from ours, and those that share our roots; as a friend emailed this morning from Paris, “Congrats to all concerned.” Nevertheless, I understand how and why people many feel differently. In any event, the day just a couple of weeks ago after Colin Powell’s articulate endorsement of Obama for president, I wanted to call my friend and ask, “So, do you think Colin Powell is as naïve as you believe I am? Do you think he is willing to sacrifice our security to the terrorists?” I didn’t.

But beyond that, I won’t try to dissuade you of your fears if you have them; the truth will be in the telling. But I will say this: back in 1992, Bill Clinton was called all kinds of nasty names too. Some more deserved than others. And he only won in his three-way race with 43% of the vote. Which means, he could not then claim nearly the mandate Obama earned (and let me say, as a side note, I hope Obama does not abuse it. He promised to reach across the aisle. If the other side’s hands are out, I want him to grab them). Yet when you think about it, all in all, and of course some will argue otherwise, Clinton’s years were pretty good years. His personal behavior was a disgrace. But more Americans made money than lost it, and when we went to war, we went in aggressively enough to achieve our goals but cautiously enough to protect our troops and our interests. Pretty good years.

We all know there is much concern, parroted throughout the campaign, that Obama doesn’t have the experience required to run the country. Whenever I’ve heard that, here’s how I’ve responded: some of our best presidents haven’t had the experience we’d want to see on a résumé; some of our worst, have. What’s more, think about that mandate. Think about those people who flooded streets last night in cities across America. Obama’s the one who attracted them. He’s the one who harnessed them. And most important, he has just demonstrated the most important quality an executive can claim: success. Sure, he had the benefit of a deeply unpopular president, but he also had the disadvantage of many deficits, some of them self-inflicted, some obviously completely beyond his control. He demonstrated unqualified success despite the fact that what he built, his huge and hugely popular campaign organization, was in the finest modern American tradition: the ultimate startup!

Last night, I thought there was one speech more eloquent than Obama’s; it was McCain’s. It was humble, it was sensitive, it was unifying. It was the real McCain. From my camera position I emailed my wife, Carol, and my sons Jason and Alex, writing, “Classiest loser’s speech in the history of the republic. Proves a few important things, not the least of which is that a campaign changes a man, but when it’s over he has the capacity to become himself again.” I had seen the same thing happen to the first President Bush. I covered him in the ‘90s, and he was a genuinely nice and humble man. Then his handlers turned him nasty. Then he lost, and the old George HW Bush came back. Carol responded to my email, telling me that she had watched the returns with some other women and they all agreed that if McCain had run as himself as shown in that speech, the election might have had a different outcome. Right or wrong, and you could argue either way, what happened last night, and how we interpreted it, was confirmation that we all can see the best of our opponents. Having covered stories in so many countries where one leader replaces another at the point of a gun, I never cease to choke up at those occasions when political rivals— sometimes a vanquished president and the incumbent who vanquished him— get together to commemorate some important event, or achieve some common cause. If you saw McCain and Obama joking about each other— and laughing at the other’s jokes— at last month’s Al Smith dinner, you know what I mean. It is a metaphor for God bless America.

Carol also said how moved she was, moved to tears, at the declaration that Barack Obama was elected president. Not because of his policies, but because of the biggest obstacle he overcame: his race. I’m sure not everyone agrees, but I’d guess that toward the end of the campaign if not earlier, when we looked at Barack Obama, we didn’t see a black man. Sure, some still saw a Socialist, a terrorist, a Muslim, but not a black man trying to break into the white man’s world. I really do think that this campaign transcended race… and we have John McCain to thank for keeping it that way. Undoubtedly there will be post-election studies to prove me right or wrong, but I believe race was a wash: for every vote Obama lost because he is black (and undoubtedly there were some), he won another vote for the same reason. You might have seen Jesse Jackson in the enormous crowd last night at Chicago’s Grant Park. Say what you will about Jesse Jackson, and you can find plenty of disapproving things to say, but he has spent his life in the pursuit of civil rights. Last night, when the camera caught him in the crowd, tears were streaming down his cheeks. I cannot imagine how black Americans feel today. But the man in the seat next to me— I started this letter in the early morning hours but decided I needed three hours sleep, so I’m finishing on the plane home— put it into a perspective I hadn’t thought about. He’s white, and told me that he and his wife watched the returns at the home of some African-American friends, who have two little girls. When the girls came into the living room and their parents told them how amazing this was, the election of a black man to the White House, their reaction was pretty much, “What’s the big deal?” They’re young enough to have grown up in a world where such a thing never seemed beyond reach. Lucky them.

And, in my opinion, lucky us. We have moved over a bump that’s been in the road all our lives, and in the life of this nation. Critics in the earlier stages of the campaign believed the transparency of Barack Obama the orator would be uncovered once he had to step away from the Teleprompter. I think he clearly proved them wrong. And if you don’t believe me, look back at the declarations of the likes of conservatives Peggy Noonan, David Frum, George Will, David Brooks, William Buckley’s son Christopher Buckley, even Charles Krauthammer. Each came to praise Obama’s stability and intellect. Some said they still don’t want him as their president, but each said he’s hardly a flash in the pan. Let’s hope he’s not, because whether or not you’re gratified by the result of the race, it is what it is and he’ll soon be everyone’s president.

However, rather than celebrate if we’re happy about the election’s outcome, we probably ought to be more cautious. The conservative friend I quoted earlier in the letter, the one who hoped for a better nation no matter what, ended with a cautionary note worth heeding, based on both experience and common sense. He wrote, “Enjoy the champagne of congratulations. Please do remember… Champagne loses all its bubbles, fascination and fizz, soon after being opened. After that… it’s just a flat, cheap wine that nobody likes to taste or swallow.”

Point taken.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Greg

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Tags: Barack Obama • Dan Rather • Greg Dobbs