Election Day

Boosting Obama, Coloradans Vote Early

By Richard Martin, 11-04-08

	...but you'll miss the doughnuts

Equipped with a camp chair, a book, and a box of glazed doughnuts (Vote the Fried Dough Party!), I arrived at my polling place at 7:20 a.m. today prepared for a long wait. There was no one there. Nobody.

It seems clear that, while about half of all Colorado voters cast early ballots in this election, that percentage is even higher—I’d wager 75%—in my area, the canyons west of Boulder. And, this being Boulder, you can guess who those early voters went for.

In 1980, the first presidential election I voted in, I was driving home from the polls in the early evening in Los Angeles and turned on the radio in my Pinto to hear Jimmy Carter giving his concession speech. In 1992 I was living in Little Rock and was hanging out in Clinton’s War Room, with James Carville and Hunter S. Thompson, when Michigan pushed the Arkansas governor over the top. The last two presidential elections have been dreary experiences, feeling as if my vote didn’t count. (Remember “I’ve built up political capital, and now I’m going to spend it”?)

Now, with voters in many states facing impossibly long lines—a form of hidden poll tax, as some commentators have pointed out—I voted early, easily (though not often), and I’m one of those liberal independents who are convinced that their vote has never mattered in a national election like it does this year.

The importance of Colorado, and the region, was underscored again by appearances here in the last 24 hours by both John McCain and Sarah Palin. Obama has been here so many times since his commanding performance at the convention that I almost expect to see him lined up for a latte at Bookends Café, on the Pearl St. mall.

Obama may or may not sweep the West in a red-turning-blue tide that will reshape the way the region votes, and views itself, for years to come. But he has certainly energized a big cohort of first-time voters, apathetic voters, and disillusioned voters like me. That in itself is an achievement worth celebrating.

Plus, I really appreciated not having to wait to vote. 

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