Red State Blue State

Red state? Blue state? What will be Montana's fate?

All day on Tuesday I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. I canvassed hard in the morning on the lower north side of town, propelled by adrenalin, I hit all 50 houses on my list in less than 2 hours. Most of the residents weren't home, but I did talk to a few who had already voted for Obama. Later, at the grocery store, where I was picking up food and drinks for the party planned for that night at Obama headquarters, I noticed that most of the grocery workers and checkers had "I voted" stickers on their shirts. During the past few months I had noticed more than a few Obama bumper stickers in unlikely places, like my daughter's elementary school parking lot. Could it really be that Montana was going to turn blue this year?

My family and I watched the election returns on TV all evening and into the night. We rejoiced each time a state was called for Obama and bit our finger nails when others were won by McCain. When the news anchors finally declared Obama the winner we popped an expensive bottle of champagne we had been saving for a special occasion. Woozy with joy (and the bubbly) I went to bed about midnight believing that Montana too was going for Obama. Imagine my disappointment when I woke up the next morning to find out that no, McCain had won our state by 3%.

For a little while I felt angry. Was all my hard work and that of countless volunteers knocking on doors and making phone calls a complete waste of time? Despite trying our hardest we just couldn't quite turn Montana from a red state to a blue state. Then I found out that we did win the county I live in and that made me feel a little better. And after all, losing by only 3% was a huge shift in a state where Bush beat Kerry by 20% in 2004.

And then I began to think about how much I personally had learned from the campaigning process. I tend to be pretty introverted and I had to move way out of my comfort zone to knock on the doors of complete strangers and to venture into neighborhoods into which I had never felt comfortable venturing after dark. The process opened my eyes and that of my family to the plight of many of our neighbors. And I learned a lot about the difficulty of getting the poor, under-educated and disenfranchised to engage in the political process and to realize that their voices need to be heard.

No doubt, it will still be uncomfortable being a liberal living in a majority red state. I had a few doors slammed in my face and talked to more than a few nasty and prejudiced people on the phone during the campaign. When I put my Obama yard sign away, I noticed it was riddled with tiny holes from a shot gun, but it's not all that unusual for people to use signs for target practice in rural Montana. But I won't let those negative things bother me today. When the sun rose this morning the big beautiful Montana sky was streaked with purple.