The victory in South Carolina, yet again, was amazing. For me, this one was more of a relief than New Hampshire. I was not quite as personally invested in this victory as in New Hampshire, since it wasn’t my state, and my time there had been shorter. However, the relief was huge; all that time in New Hampshire would have been for naught if there was no victory in South Carolina, and obviously I didn’t travel down there in hopes of a loss. At the end of the day, some of the volunteers headed down to Columbia for the victory party (though victory was not yet in hand). Since I had a 19 hour drive the following day to get back to work the day after that, I didn’t think it was wise for me to drive the 3-4 hours down and the 3-4 hours back, but was able to get a ride down with one person and a ride back with a couple. Still, it probably wasn’t wise, but I’m glad I went.
On the trip down we heard that the evangelical vote turned out, and that the exit polls looked positive for Senator McCain. This basically meant we had no clue what the end result would be. Obviously positive exit polls were a good thing, but Senator McCain was not supposed to win the evangelical vote. The hotel where the party was hosted was a sight to see. A stage was up front, the supporters were in a sort of center square, and the media completely surrounded us. There were a few times throughout the election where I thought, ‘Boy he’s come a long way since Claremont,’ and this was one of them. A number of New Hampshire town halls had no press coverage and now this place was packed.
The crowd watched the big screen TV’s that broadcasted coverage from Fox News. Senator McCain took a lead that he never gave up, and the crowd started chanting, “Call it, call it,” as time passed. Finally they called it; Senator McCain had won.