Spontaneous mob celebrates Obama's victory

Posted November 5, 2008 2:30 AM | 1 Comment

Tonight was a pretty amazing night. I was dreading a drawn out months long controversy over flawed electronic voting machines and voter fraud, but instead we got a substantial victory for Obama that was apparent early in the evening after media networks projected New Hampshire and Pennsylvania for the Democrats.

I got up at 7 to vote, and arrived at the polls around 7:10 a.m. to find a line down the block and around the corner. It took 70 minutes of waiting before I could cast my ballot, but when I left, the line was only half the length. Several friends reported much quicker experiences at other times of the day. Note to self: Vote absentee or procrastinate, but don't be an early bird on election day.

The line at the No. 1 Firehouse on Dayton Street

Then after 10 p.m. the Herald started getting reports from staffers of random cheering up and down State Street. This eventually cascaded (in the biochemical sense) into a crowd of probably more than 3,000. You can read more about the night's festivities in the Badger Herald article "Thousands celebrate outcome, filling Madison streets."

Here is a mixture of OK and terrible photos I took, but hopefully you can at least get a sense of the excitement and energy of Madison tonight.