Election Day

I am not as nervous, nor as anxiously, happily tearful, as I was the day my son was born.

Here are a few things to read today while you ignore the exit polls:

• Letter from Malawi: “Throughout this election — during the primary and the general — almost everyone here in the village of Nambitembo has been paying close attention to Obama’s progress. Just this morning, a shoesmith from the nearby trading centre stopped me to ask if I thought Obama could win McCain’s home state of Arizona.”
• Daughter of slave votes for Obama: “Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn’t recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.”
• Family Values: “The kid wasn’t out, however, to his extended family — aunts, uncles, grandparents — and he was worried that many of his relatives would be voting for Prop 8. He asked me if he should come out to his extended family and ask them to vote against Prop 8.”