The night of my thirtieth birthday was spent sitting in the kitchen
with a bottle of cheap white wine watching the first uncontestable
election victory of George W. Bush. He didn't steal it this time, they
chose him. I couldn't face that again. So last night I stayed up long
enough to see Obama gain - what was it, 150 seats? against McCain's
90-odd - then McCain suddenly gained another 20 and I remembered Kerry
and knew exactly where this was going.
This
morning was very grey, wasn't it. I turned on the telly and... well
McCain's victory was still a kick in the guts even though I'd called it.
Obama's wry but wounded speech in Chicago, the tears in the crowd, the
quiet, broken rage, everything as I'd imagined, the predictability of
the whole scene was almost a comfort. And the tension had been
unbearable so at least we'd been put out of our misery, that too was
sort of a comfort... And then McCain took the mike in Pheonix to give
his victory speech, and I thought it odd that he wasn't smiling.
I
mean it was very odd. Especially given the ecstatic noise the crowd was
making. There was no pointing at the crowd either, I can understand
that he wanted to come across as, well sobre, but why wasn't he smiling?
He just stood there flanked by single-star-spangled banners, his lips
pressed, palms out, and it looked like the crowd would never shut up.
But when they let him speak I have to admit he was more gracious than
I'd ever seen him: "Thank you. Thank you, my friends. Thank you for
coming here on this beautiful Arizona evening. A little while ago, I had
the honor of a call from Senator Barack Obama - " at which point the
crowd struck up again, like a wind, almost like they'd lost. There were
real jeers. The cameras picked out face after face and none would have
looked out of place in a meeting at the warehouse in a straight-to-video
Steven Seagal film. McCain put his hands out once again and signaled
weakly for silence. Finally he got it, and he held it. For what seemed
like a minute. And then, it was extraordinary. It was sort of
beautiful... "Guys. You scare me."
Silence
from the crowd. And then: "My fellow prisoners... Goodbye." And he
opened a door in the air behind him, turned to raise a small old hand
above his head for the first time in twenty years, waved farewell, and
walked through it smiling.
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