Welcome to the EMILY's List "war room". As we watched the returns (SLOW RETURNS for a while), our cautious optimisim settled into sheer nervousness. Early reports showed our two Senate races (Shaheen in NH and Hagan in NC) up, but with small numbers reporting. As those numbers increased, we learned that YES!, in fact, we did elect two more women to the U.S. Senate, taking over two Republican Senate seats.
Then the steady roll of states that came in for Obama...at 11:00, everyone was holding their breath, knowing it was over and that Senator Obama would become President-elect Obama, but just needing to hear it from one of the networks to make it official. I wasn't prepared for how emotional it would be to watch history being made, and to have just been just one small part of the millions upon millions of hopes and dreams that made this happen.
Maybe this moment affords us the chance to believe where once we may have lost hope. Maybe this is a reminder that together, we can do anything and that so much is possible if we remember that we are all in this together. For everyone who has ever worked it politics, there is inevitably a time where you become cynical and you lose sight of what it was that made you choose this wacky career anyway. The past election cycle has taught me to believe again. Sometimes to believe so hard that it breaks your heart when what you want so badly doesn't happen. And then to remember that it's not about one person or another, but the ideas that a person presents that can move ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
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