Got to see the first returns come in while having dinner at Old Ebbitt, a bar and grill across the street from the Treasury building. After dessert we went back to the Hotel Harrington (more on that later). it had been a long day. We’d buried my Nana at Arlington in the morning and gone to Maryland for a party at her nephew’s house. My sister was bumming a bed from us for the night before heading back to California, and we were all just about ready to get some sleep. I was the last holdout, leaving the television on to wait for the west coast returns. The moment the polls closed back home, CNN called the election for Barack Obama (it was certainly no surprise at that point).
Moments later we heard cheers from eleven floors down. The crowd at Harry’s got the word and were out on the sidewalk celebrating. Car horns erupted up and down the street. Rebecca, Sharon, and I got up, put on some street clothes, and headed down to check it out. The streets of Washington, DC are pretty mellow at night. Not many people out and about. We saw small groups of people, maybe three or four walking together, jubilant. We were tempted to head back up, then we heard some commotion down E street, towards the White House. Let’s check it out, why not?
As we walked, we passed by dozens of people who would pump their hands in the air and shout “Obama!” or “Yes, we can!” and an occasional “President of the United States!” I can only assume the McCain supporters were just not interested in staying up or going out for a defeat. Everybody we saw was ecstatic until we got to a group of nicely-dressed people exiting a hotel to their valet parking. Never found out who they were.
The next not-terribly-happy group we ran into were the White House security people on Executive Avenue. Apparently they were a bit edgy. The sidewalk nearest the southern end of the White House, which had been open to the public the night before, was off-limits. We had to cross the street to follow some college-age kids that were hooting and hollering. Once we got around to Lafayette Square and saw the stream of young people coming in from George Washington University to celebrate the election results, I understood why.
Everybody was positive, but nearly everybody was young, partisan, and energetic. It was invigorating to see people smiling and laughing and singing and chanting (and even dancing in the streets a bit). But get that many excited young people in the same place at the same time, and you start looking for you nearest exit. Everything was positive. Everybody was well-behaved. There were no problems. But that didn’t mean I needed my pregnant wife on hand if anybody did something stupid and brought the Feds down on us.
We cheered along for a bit, never quite going to the center of the action, and headed back to our room. On the way, we stopped off at the Elephant & Castle to listen to the President Elect’s acceptance speech and tip back a drink just before last call. The yelling and honking continued into the night, keeping us up off and on till three in the morning. I should probably ask one of the locals if this happens every time a new president in selected. I bet our waiter at Old Ebbitt knows; his mother is an undersecretary at the State Department.
Neat town.
