He's like a maverick!

And like THAT ONE, you know, that maybe-Uncle-Tom one, kinda!

I mean, I look like this. That's me in the middle...

I was on assignment with Lindy West. Also female, also blonde. It definitely didn't help matters that when we stopped at Wendy's on the way there, to grab some quick fast food, an angry Native American in a wheelchair rolled up to the drive-thru, up our to car window, and yelled "HONKYS!" super frickin' loud.

But all the nervousness was for not. It wasn't just a men's club - there were women, kids, old, and young. Everyone was kind and friendly, and when those results came in, and Obama took the Presidency, I couldn't think of another place I would have rather been, anywhere. Two ladies with tears streaming down their faces grabbed me and we alternately held hands and jumped up and down, then hugged and kissed each other like great old friends. It completely surprised and absolutely inspired me. I couldn't believe no one batted an eye when I blurted out "WE DID IT! WE DID IT!"

But then again, I suppose we ALL did do "it".

There's been a million videos on SLOG, I know. But here's the video we made there last night. Please watch it. I promise, it's a pretty good one...

FiveThirtyEight's election-eve prediction, of 349 electoral votes for Obama:

Reality this afternoon, of a projected 349 electoral votes for Obama:

I might start caring about baseball, just to further appreciate the awesomeness of Nate Silver.

Kate, who shot this video, writes...

It was wonderful euphoria, and I don't remember when I started crying but by the end of this video there were tears running down my face. I hugged strangers who had become friends (nice to meet you, Regina!). An older man who had been drinking tall boys all night was standing next to me and gently crying. I tapped him on the shoulder and said "cheers." We clinked beers and he said, “Something just happened.” “Yes it did, yes it did,” I replied. My face hurt from smiling. And that night, as we danced in the streets and the cars honked their horns in rhythm (beep beep beep. yes we can.), it felt like we were all thinking and celebrating as one conscious person. This must be what unity feels like, I thought. How amazing to be a part of it this moment.

I went to The Showbox by myself since my friend had bailed on me (something about catching a plane that night, details), but I never once felt alone. Thank you for last night, for giving me a community. The Stranger and The Slog got me through this election (and my boring day job). I don’t know if it was because I was sitting close to the doors or just because of the energy in the air, but I had the chills all night.

Lizzie Leitzell grew up in Seattle and now lives in Brooklyn. She was out in the streets last night, taking pictures, when Obama won. I particularly love her photo, above, of a pair of cops joining in the celebration. There are lots more terrific pictures at Leitzell's blog.

UPDATE: It seems that not all the cops out in Brooklyn last night joined in the celebration: "Cops Rough Up Partying Barack Hipsters on Burg's Bedford Ave." Via Towleroad.

Philadelphia Weekly devoted its election-issue feature to photographer Zoe Strauss (here's the story), whose book America is coming out on November 7 and includes the above images—which are particularly perfect for today.

Here's a podcast I did with Strauss a few months ago when she was showing at Open Satellite in Bellevue.

^{Nola Avienne's amygdala (layered) (2007), iron filings embedded in paper created on a magnetic drawing machine, 2 by 8 feet}

Artist Nola Avienne knew that this piece of hers had gone into a public collection, but she didn't know it was at Elections HQ. I wrote to tell her this morning, and she responded that it gave the piece an unintended meaning:

I am delighted that all those circles made hundreds of "O"s for Obama.

I hope it hypnotized and subliminally swayed those undecided voters. I finally got a good night's sleep last night knowing we had hope.

O, Nola

Those words--we get what we deserve--were reverberating in my mind after midnight last night in the sea of revelers at the intersection of Broadway and Pike when someone I barely know emerged from the crowd, handed me a full bottle of champagne, and then disappeared back into the crowd. There was a magical quality to the crowd--the unbridled joy, the to the lack of irony, the brotherhood/sisterhood, the genuinely-liking-each-other, the gravity-less monkeying on the street utilities, the open drinking in front of cops. It had the electric, unselfconscious feeling of a sports victory but it was amplified by the fact that we were celebrating not a team's victory but the victory of liberal ideas as a framework for the future of the free world.

One got the startling sense last night that we were bigger in number than we realized. It is possible to deeply internalize your family's fucked up Republican arrogance, to believe on some level that you are outnumbered--as another of my relatives, also a diehard Republican, likes to chirp whenever we talk about politics, "Majority ruuu-ules!"--and one great gift of last night was the realization not only that there are lots of liberals out there (duh) but also that there are enough people out there who like liberals to make this happen (easy to forget). Obama has made liberalism likable again.

The dance club Neighbours made its contribution to history by dragging a speaker out onto the roof, blasting a couple songs ("Don't Stop Believing") for people to dance to (or take off their shirts and put each other on their backs and run around to), and then handing the microphone to a drag queen who--even though she was unlit up on that roof and basically out of sight (there's a metaphor in there somewhere)--led the crowd through the most glorious, sincere, elated national anthem I've ever been part of. It was the middle of the night, it was the middle of the street, and everyone--EVERYONE--sang.

All photos by Adam Weintraub unless otherwise noted.

^{Photo by Andy Pixel}

^{Photo by christophernelsonphotog raphy}

^{Photo by mraaronmorris}

^{Photo by sea turtle}

^{Photo by charity.lynne}

So many more amazing photos of Seattle and beyond in the Stranger's Flickr Pool.

This morning I knocked on Ms. Harris's door—she moved here from Texas in 1965 with her husband, a police officer who died in the 1980s, and I think she's about 85 now—and when she answered it she had tears in her eyes. "I know why you come," she said. "To tell me about the president!"

Ms. Harris, mother of seven children, has an RFK/JFK/MLK tapestry on her wall and a black Last Supper above her fireplace. She says her husband bought those. She makes it sound like Obama's not such a big deal, but she's not really fooling me. "My parents, they worked. But I don't know anything about slavery. I didn't live through that. No, I just said, whoever gets its, I hope they do something for us, to make things better. I've never seen peoples lose their houses before."

When I ask how her husband would have felt today, she changes her tune a little. "There's a lot of people who didn't live to see this. That's the first thing I said last night."

I want to take her picture very much, but I can't bring myself to ask her because she doesn't have her teeth in and is holding her hand over her mouth the entire time she's talking.

The last thing she says about Obama is, "We'll just have to see what he does." She sounds like a great mother—one with tears of pride in her eyes, yes, but high expectations, too.

Bellevue was not as crazy as Seattle reportedly is at the moment, but it was sincere. To hug complete strangers at the ascendancy of a Democratic presidency, at the first moment on the planet earth that a western industrialized nation has accepted a minority as its leader, is beyond believable at this point. No Democratic president has assumed this level of acceptance from his electorate since FDR. This is completely stunning. Bellevue is in awe, as are we all.

Here are the latest local election results as of 12:30:

Gov. Christine Gregoire: 53.53% (!!!!!!)
Dino Rossi: 46.47%

Darcy Burner: 50.39%
Dave Reichert: 49.61%

John Ladenburg has conceded the AG race to Rob McKenna

Peter Goldmark: 50.39%
Doug Sutherland: 49.61%

Randy Dorn: 50.86%
Terry Bergeson: 49.14%

Reuven Carlyle: 65.12%
John Burbank: 34.88%

Scott White: 71.26%
Gerry Pollett: 28.74%

Pike Place Levy:
YES 62.58%
NO 37.42%

Parks Levy
Yes: 60.76%
No: 39.24%

And finally, Sound Transit:
Approved: 59%
Rejected: 41%

Beautiful, ain't it?