You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The GOP celebration.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016.
Trump V Clinton.
Who will be the 45th President of the United States?
The nation is divided. The World is watching.
Red V Blue.
Democrats V Republicans.
It is arguably the biggest election in the history of the world.
OK, maybe I made that up, but this election is certainly one for the ages.
Clinton, the consummate insider versus Trump, the Billionaire Bad boy.
So I have been ordered to cover the Republican party for the remainder of the night.
I find myself at the Natchez Country club in Williamson County, a Republican stronghold in a state that bleeds red.
As soon as I pull in I see a motorcoach with the huge face of Donald Trump on the side.
Hair blazing. Eyes piercing. The bus looks like a 10 ton tweet of fueled rage.
“Must be the place,” I say to myself.
I walk in to the packed clubhouse and the first thing I see is 3 Chinese people wearing white T shirts with big bold letters that read :Chinese Americans Love Trump.
I am bewildered. Is this a political function or a three ring circus.
I half way expect to see a ring master directing me into a tent.
Instead I find a peppy coordinator who thanks me for coming and tells me it is going to be a great night.
I smile courteously and ask where we can set up.
She points to the back, by a column.
I see a cash bar that is 3 deep with red, white and hopeful.
There is a mountain of cheese and deli sandwiches on a table.
Everywhere I turn there are balloons with Trump and Pence stenciled across the elastic front.
Returns are just starting to pour in and Fox News is on the big screen.
I see Trump stickers on sport coats. Woman are wearing American Flags in their hair.
There is a feeling among the crowd that something is about to happen. It’s the same feeling the dogs get when I put on my sneakers and grab the leash. They run for the door and spin in place yelping with excitement. I might be going to the restroom or getting up to brew a pot of coffee. But in their mind, the next big thing is about to happen, and that is the feeling in this room.
“Coming to you at 7:25 for a cut in,” the producer texts.
I have been on the clock now for 12 hours. Election days are always tough. The night Bush and Gore slid into a dumpster and tied in a hanging chad of insanity; the night lasted forever until someone said, “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
That’s what I am halfway expecting tonight. All the reports for weeks are Clinton is going to steam roll Trump.
In 12 hours, he’ll be on a golf course in Scotland yelling at a gopher who stole his ball. That’s what I’ve been told will happen. But that is not what is happening.
The tide is coming in and with it, an excitement that you can touch.
I see U.S. Congresswoman, Marsha Blackburn, from the 7th District. She is a Republican institution and she just clobbered some mope running against her. Marsha Blackburn wins the congressional seat in Williamson County as casually as some soccer moms push a cart down the deli aisle.
In this place, Blackburn is the Queen, and she has been all over the nation pushing the Trump agenda. I figure she will be an easy interview to satisfy my first cut in.
“Hey Congresswoman,” I say lightly tapping her shoulder.
Blackburn is a diminutive woman with a big smile and kind face. If you didn’t know she was a political heavy hitter, you’d think she was a librarian.
She turns and her eyes sparkle red white and blue.
Could we get a quick word with you?
“Of course,” she says moving over to the camera.
She is a professional politician. One question goes a long way. She speaks of the campaign and the need for change in the country.
She is elegant and effusive about her campaign and the mood in the country.
She tells me that the crowds for Trump are overwhelming.
I ask her to give me one sentence that sums up each candidate.
“Clinton represents the status quo. Trump represents change.”
I shake her hand and get ready for a live hit.
As they toss to me, Florida falls to Trump.
The crowd explodes as Trump – Pence signs are waved like confetti and people jump on chairs to applaud.
Somewhere in my brain I remember George Stephanopoulos saying that if Trump lost Florida, the election was over. But if Trump won Florida….
“We’re here at the Old Natchez Country Club,” I scream into the microphone. “The crowd here is pulsing with enthusiasm. And when results started coming in favorable to Trump, this highly charged, highly partisan crowd blew a gasket.”
I pause as the Congresswoman’s sound bite plays full.
I come back out live showing a young Frenchman who is at the table next to our location. He is hard at work drawing cartoons of the gathering. His black and white etchings are rudimentary.
“This young man works for no publication, he paid his own way to this party. He tells me he is here to document this American revolution.”
I toss it back to the anchors.
“We’re clear,” my photographer tells me.
“How you all doing?” A man in a Michigan T shirt asks.
He is standing with a tall woman with brown hair. Her face is snow white, her eyes dark and probing. Her features hard.”
The man is watching a hockey game on his cell phone. “Has Michigan come in yet?” he blurts out, looking up from his device. He is a frumpy man. He is a potato sack of a man. He is leaning on the small table full of cocktail weenies and watered down liquor. He will repeatedly tell me that the rust belt is for Trump.
“People are sick of the same old politics,” he will say between slurps of sandwich.
“Michigan is going to go Trump. You’ll see.”
I roll my eyes.
Over the course of the next few minutes, he will tell us that his companion is from Russia and this is her first American election.
The woman will repeatedly leave the tiny table and retrieve coffee and food for the man, which he gladly offers to my photographer and me.
“Russian Mail Order Bride?,” I say with a wink to my cameraman.
He laughs. “Probably.”
“America!”
As the states turn red, the crowd grows in enthusiasm. I will hear USA chanted over and over. I will hear two prayers for our country to come together. I will hear the pledge of allegiance.
I stand politely, quietly, scribbling in my reporter’s note pad. I am neutral, here to cover the event. I handle this room of percolated republican excitement as if it is crime scene and I am gathering facts.
Florida and Ohio fall. The reality that Trump is going to win begins to permeate the room. The labs are now barking at the back door, they are scratching at the knob. They know they are going outside.
Around 10:30, the election is far from over, but the perky Williamson County election coordinator orders up a round of champagne.
“have some,” she offers.
“I’m working,” I say. “Thanks.”
By 11:30 Trump is 16 electoral votes shy of 270 needed to be the President.
The crowd has surged to the front of the room, gathered around the massive screen. They cling on every word, on every new bit of information.
“Call it,” someone shouts.
Are you going to stay till she concedes someone asks.
My knees are throbbing. I’m exhausted. It’s been a 16 hour day.
I want to go lay down, actually watch the results quietly, as an American.
I realize that this entire day, a personal reflection of what the future could be, I have been ON. I have had not one second to think about my vote, what matters to me. From morning till night I have been documenting the process, the event, the emotions of others. Now I just want to lay down in the dark and make sense of the red and blue tornado spinning around me.
My replacement shows up. I point at the throng at the front of the room.
“When they call the election, they are going to go all Mt. Vesuvius. Make sure you get that live.”
She nods.
And like that, I am off the clock.
I walk by the signs, past the balloons, wave goodbye to Chinese Americans for Trump.
I leave behind the red white and hullaballoo and exit the tent.
As the country club door slams shut, the cool night air hits me in the face.
For the first time all day, I am alone with only the heavens and the moon to guide my path.
The sky is dark and the stars twinkling.
I am exhausted, but I also realize that this is a night that will mark the beginning of a new beginning.
Half the nation is angry and scared. Half the nation is ready for a new start.
How will our nation coalesce?
Can the divide be crossed, can the wound be healed?
America is many things to many people.
America is a chunk of steel forged with the blood of Patriots. America is hope, dreamed by anyone who ever wanted a better life.
I see an American flag on the windshield wiper of a car. I think that stars and stripes represents toughness, fairness, freedom. It is a patriotic cake, one part resilience, one part possibility.
The night is beautiful. The stars are twinkling. I could put on the election. I put on classic rock.
The Rolling Stones “you can’t always get what you want” begins playing.
I smile. The song somehow seems fitting for an election where half of the country will wake up disillusioned and begin checking Expedia for the cheapest flights to Canada.
Life’s Crazy™