Election Morning in Virginia

RICHMOND, VA -- It's drizzling here in the heart of the old confederacy. But the the Virginia for Change headquarters is packed full of volunteers manning a call center.

The room sounds like a telethon, the soft murmur of dozens of phone conversations and the phones ringing non-stop. There are already reports streaming in of long lines. One woman on the phone with a friend told me her friend had arrived at her polling location--a school outside Newport--at 5 am and there was already a line. Turnout is encouraging, but lines are anxiety-producing for the organizers here.

The Obama folks have seemingly thought of everything. They've got bilingual translators (even for French!) on hand ready to work.

I'm now headed down to the small town of Emporia, to watch the campaign's rural GOTV in action.

Comments (7)

1. There's the key line, Mr Hayes...

   "The Obama folks have seemingly thought of everything."

   Win or lose, the Obama campaign has been a benchmark for other campaigns to try to imitate in the future.

   The Right may claim it "was the money"...but it wasn't. He beat the Clinton Machine who had ALL the money and (apparently) ALL the organization and endorsements.

   That took something extraordinary.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 11/04/2008 @ 08:37am

2. Go vote Washington DC suburbanites! You've got hundreds of days leave built up at your government job. Take the day off. Go Vote!

   Posted by bleedingheart at 11/04/2008 @ 09:16am

3. landslide... Landslide... LANDSLIDE!

   Go OBAMA/BIDEN!

   Posted by RocketJ at 11/04/2008 @ 09:18am

4. Posted by bleedingheart at 11/04/2008 @ 09:16am

   Errrr....

   So everybody living in the DC suburbs is a government employee?

   Do you ever think before you speak?

   Posted by TexasFlood at 11/04/2008 @ 10:36am

5. Posted by TexasFlood at 11/04/2008 @ 10:36am

   bleeding is a GOP poser, TF.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 11/04/2008 @ 10:55am

6. People in our office did not find voting in No. Va. too outlandish this morning. My wait was only 15-20 minutes long.

   Only one person was in a line over an hour.

   The afternoon rain may slow evening turnout. You would think that would hurt McCain more than Obama. Obamaites seem to be much more dedicated.

   Posted by thewhit at 11/04/2008 @ 4:57pm

7. I used to live in Richmond and I couldn't wait to leave a state where the majority are "mentally challenged". Just this morning I read that many at George Mason University said they would not be voting until tomorrow because they read (somewhere) that the voting day was changed. This was because the system was hacked over night and they fell for it. Hopefully someone told them of the prank and they voted. Regardless, most people in Virginia (at least when I was living there) were racists and still fighting the Civil War. I hope that has changed because Senator Obama needs to win Virginia.

   Obama/Biden 2008

   Posted by aplwonk at 11/04/2008 @ 6:11pm