Melina and Obama

I have been pretty much obsessed with the election lately and have dragged Melina along kicking and screaming (sometimes). Jeff has resisted my efforts, though he did commit to being an observer at a polling place with me tonight (more on that later).

On Sunday we went to the Obama rally in waterfront park, despite a wicked, wicked cold. To this day I don't know how I managed to rally myself, because I still feel under the weather. Anyway, Jeff went for a bike ride (it was a beautiful day) so Melina and I got on the bus and headed downtown. Apparently the line to get in was about 22 blocks long, but we rather dishonestly snuck in where it crossed a street (I had no idea where the end was). I figured that since I had waited in line to see Obama before, and had been turned away a foot from the door, I was entitled.

Once we got in, a kind volunteer directed us to a spot in the shade (because Melina was with me). (We were under the tree to the right in the picture above). Since we were there for about two hours, we got to know our neighbors pretty well: a friendly and interesting parenting educator who saved our spot while we waited for an hour to use the porta-potty; a troubled parent with a poorly disciplined preschooler who kept throwing plastic bottles into the crowd; and a tightly-wound young woman, apparently not a mom, who was obsessed with the troubled parent's misguided attempts to disipline her child, and who spent more time staring angrily at the mom than actually watching Obama. It would have been just SO interesting to get the three of them together to talk, although I don't know if I really would have wanted to be there.

Finally, Obama came to the podium (just as Melina was falling asleep in the Ergo on my back). The noise of the crowd cheering woke her up. It was so inspiring to see Obama and his family up there. It really was moving to see an African-American family (oh, can I just say "black"?) and know that they could (probably WILL) be the First Family come January. Let us hope.

The speech itself was the standard stump speech, and I don't remember most of it, but just the fact that we were there was significant. I don't know if Melina actually ever SAW Obama; I tried to point him out to her, but I don't think she quite got it, given that there were several thousand people between him and us.

So today we had another adventure in democracy. I volunteered to go over and be an "observer" at a polling place, specifically the Hollywood Library. Since Oregon votes by mail, polling places really aren't that exciting, but someone has to make sure the box stays there until 8:00 p.m. I went over with Molly and Melina; Jeff was going to meet me there when he got off work. Turns out that observers from campaigns must stay 100 feet (or 50 feet, I heard later) away from the ballot box, which means that I would have been across the street and unable even to SEE the box. I called HQ, who said I might as well go home until later that evening. After telling Jeff there was a chance I might be arrested (in my dreams), I returned to the library at 7:30 ingeniously disguised as a common citizen. In that persona I managed to sneak my way in, past the only library employee who knew my real identity, and pretend to peruse the children's literature (I even checked out three books just for effect), while glancing at the ballot box occasionally. Apparently I was the only observer there, although other polling places had up to four observers. At 8:00 they closed the polling place and I was able to confirm that democracy had been sufficiently safeguarded.

Throughout this whole election cycle, Melina has been more and more into Obama. Actually, I think she just likes the way his name sounds, and I suspect she thinks any black man is Barack Obama. She's always asking for stories about Barack Obama (one day about Barackobama?). They usually have something to with Obama battling a scary monster or going down the slide at the park. I have been trying to educate her about Hilary, too, but Obama is more fun to say.