I was officiailly Voter No. 1 in my precinct. Even at 7 AM, there was a queue heading out the door. Young ones, old ones, various persuasions. The people who got to the polls early had giant smiles on their face. They longed to communicate their ecstacy to their brethren. This Kerry vote, apparently, was the new zen. Forego your moring jog and cast thy ballot. Better than the morning newspaper and coffee routine, better even than morning sex.

The people I talked with were prepared to commit representative revolution. And they were all ten minutes early. One woman panicked when she discovered that her name wasn’t on the roster. Would her vote count? Would they take that away? She had recently moved and was prepared to go back to her old neighborhood to vote, if necessary. The needs of her job could wait.

I chatted with a poll worker and he said that this was the largest crowd he’d seen in eight years. I asked him if it was going to be a busy day. “Well, you get the morning crowd before work. But this is a big crowd.”

I came back later, and the line was longer at 7:30. Had these people gone through the Tolstoy-length voter information packet in toto? Well, yes and no. “I only vote for the props I feel passionate about. I’m really here for Kerry,” said one of my neighbors. A man told me that he had holed himself up over the weekend and was prepared to incinerate the expensive campaign literature that had been lodged under his doorstep. “Those fuckers don’t know when to quit,” he said. “There oughta be a law.” I knew what he meant. I’d received five automated voicemails the night before that I’d quickly erased.

A young lady of twenty was passing out pamphlets for a supervisor in front of my polling place. I told her that she was less than 100 feet away from the polling place and that current laws prohibited dissemination of campaign literature. She pointed to the door. I pointed to the clearly marked sign that laid down the limit. “Do you really want to be as bad as the bad guys?” I asked. Across the street, an unshaven foirtysomthing man popped his head out of his window and boomed a sterner warning. The young lady ambled down the street, but anyone could see that she’d be there all day.

When I fed my ballots into the machine, there was another young lady with a video camera who captured my efforts to simultaneously hold onto my morning cup of coffee and tear the receipts from the top of the sheets. I could have pointed out to her that she needed a release. But I kept silent. Like the others, this race had emboldened her to shoot a spontaneous documentary. Of what, who knew? Did she foresee another battle in Florida? Was this B-roll for a nonfictional narrative that no one could predict?

If there was any consolation about 2000’s Florida fiasco, it was this: the sham had reminded everyone how important it was to vote. It had awakened the dormant democratic pulse. And even if King George ascends to the throne again, I know that this time it won’t go down without a fight.

Sure, I’m a bit disappointed. Derek, meanwhile, is ready to draw blood in a post entitled “Motherfucker.” I should remind Derek that in the 1999 runoff, Ammiano lost to Brown by 40,000 votes. Gonzalez, meanwhile, tonight lost by a mere 10,000 votes. Sure, it sucks. But this is progress. By all reports, the Gonzalez campaign was disorganized. The Newsom folks hit upon the brilliant idea of victory by absentees. And the voter turnout in the Bayview/Hunters Point, Visitation Valley, and Ingleside areas was nothing short of abysmal, because neither of the candidates wanted to recruit the downtrodden. But don’t listen to me. Look at the precinct breakdown on the SF Department of Elections page.

But, really, that’s enough about politics until March 1, 2004. This blog, in its return, has become polluted with simplistic liberal sentiments within its slightly more informed opinions on literature and the like. And who needs more of that? It’s about as unpalatable as suffering through another warblog. As such, I shall make every effort not to mention politics until things heat up in the inevitable Dean-Bush showdown next year. You deserve better than my chiaroscuro.

Perhaps I should mention that I’m casually drunk right now.

[8/9/05 UPDATE: Boy, there used to be a lot of posts here put up in the evenings after drinking. In the end, I finally figured out that answering email or composing blog entries probably isn’t wise after a few glasses of wine or whiskey. I should still probably drink much less than I do. One of the reasons I refrain from writing about politics (although not thinking about them) all the time is that such silly statements as the above (“the inevitable Dean-Bush showdown”) become so ridiculously dated in mere months. One of the risks with anyone I suppose.]

She was across the street, curly blonde locks tucked beneath a snow white cap, flowing down her shoulders, bright teeth matching the hue of the hat on a cold rainy night. It was just close to poll’s close. She raised her arm and accosted me.

“Excuse me, do you know where the polling place is?”

“Who are you voting for?” I asked.

“Gonzalez.”

“I’ll personally escort you there myself.”

But, hey, I would have done it even if she was voting for Newsom. She was a cutie. No. Get that boat back into rational rivulets. She was a voter.

There aren’t election results up yet, but it’s looking pretty good for Gonzalez. I’ve learned that Gavin Newsom sent somewhere in the area of 150,000 abentee applications to potential voters. This despite a Clinton and a Gore endorsement. I’ve never heard of a candidate ever resorting to anything like this.

But just to be safe, I’ve conducted an informal poll among people who are, what I would call, traditional Democrats.

The publisher of a major magazine: “Gonzalez. Begrudgingly.”

A Gore voter with a pragmatic reactionary tilt: “Well, I had to vote for Matt after eight years of Brown.”

Even a person who’s normally apolitical confessed that he’s voting for Gonzalez.

Gonzalez has a momentum here that Ammiano didn’t have back in ’99. It was a hell of a coup to get people to write Tom Ammiano’s name onto the ballot and get him in the runoff. But the minute the runoff went down, momentum shifted. People became painfully aware of Ammiano’s limitations and were willing to let the pragmatic Democrats west of Twin Peaks have the final say.

But not this time. The Financial District signs are split evenly between Gonzalez and Newsom. Pragmatism has shifted. People are hungry for something new. Different. Honest. I suspect the fact that Newsom has never appeared in a photograph with his hair tousled in any way has something to do with it. What were the Newsom people thinking?

I’m amazed to say that it may actually happen tonight. 82% of San Francisco voted against the recall. We do things differently here. And we could be the first city in the United States with a Green Party mayor. If it does go down, I’ll be very proud to be a San Franciscan. Very proud to be part of a movement that tells the nation, “Politics doesn’t have to be an unctuous business. Sometimes, under special circumstances, you can have results.”

UPDATE: We lost. But it was fun ride. Tim Redmond calculates that Newsom spent $34 a vote to Gonzalez’s $4. It’s still a respectable showing.