After four weeks of hard campaigning, sleepless nights, hand-shaking seniors in Sunrise Lakes, Century Village and Tamarac - it came down to the debate in Tampa - and the polls that followed.
That weekend, I spent every day and night hanging flyers for Peter. The day before, Jesse Jackson spent the day flying with Peter to get-out-the-vote in various cities. That evening, I enjoyed dinner with Peter, Craig Kirby (Edwards' Deputy Campiagn Manager and Peter's Campiagn manager) and the Reverand. As the dinner came to an end, I was tasked with being Peter's driver for the last night. We were to hit local diners from 10pm til 3am -- where Peter would be hand-shaking with voters.
The next day, I worked the senior communities in Tamarac -- meeting most of the Broward County political candidates in from of the Senior Center -- and spent the last three hours in one of the black neighborhoods of Broward -- all to get out the vote. As the polls closed, I got a call from Jared Asch, Peter's Fundraising Director, telling me that we were doing great in all of the major cities. We had a victory party set up at Bahia Cabana Bar - and I had to clean up from the day of campaigning.
Showered, shaved and freshly dressed - and in the car, I get a call from my friend at Visions for Working Families. Lisa told me the opening numbers - and they were not good. All I could do is pray they would get better - 20 point spread - that couldn't be right. But, by the end of the night, 25 points separated Betty from Peter - and Peter's concession speech was one of the toughest experiences I ever had in politics.
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