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http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=30&si=1280651&issue_id=11638

Final word from Ohio was the cue for one hell of a party

Thursday November 4th 2004

FOR the hardcore Republican faithful gathered in the nation's capital, the moment of euphoric confirmation came at precisely 12.41am.

In the bowels of the Ronald Reagan building, where the party was holding what for months had been termed its "victory rally," Fox News - being shown on huge video monitors - announced that it was calling the state of Ohio for the president.

Suddenly, instantly, the already noisy and ebullient party turned into an extraordinary, roaring mass of people cheering, kissing, hugging and punching the air. Having secured Florida about an hour earlier, this was the development they knew would secure Mr Bush another four years in the White House, located just a few quiet streets away.

One young couple, their fresh faces beaming with delight, posed with wide smiles as they had their photograph taken against the backdrop of the television screen that was flashing up the magical numbers that had just come in from the Hawkeye state.

"He has been a great leader," said Carolyn Damschen, 21, an intern at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank, as people around her continued to scream and yell with glee . "He has improved the economy and made more jobs with his tax-cuts." Her fiance, Brian Wise, 25, was equally thrilled by the prospect of another four years of a Bush administration.

"This just ensures we are going in the right direction and that we're recovering from the 9/11 attacks," he said.

There had not always been such an abundance of young, joyous emotion on Tuesday evening as several hundred Republican officials, supporters and volunteers packed together to watch the results of the 2004 election slowly drip in from across the 50 states of the US.

Initially, a series of early exit polls picked up by the major television networks and the internet suggested that the Democrats were gathering momentum in the key battleground states of Florida and Ohio and that they might be getting their noses ahead of the Republicans.

Could it be that George Bush, sitting in the White House with his family, might be forced to come to the party and give a concession speech rather than the victory delivery they were all so eagerly and feverishly anticipating?

As the evening wore on, it became apparent that this group of true believers would be saved from such a scenario. Gradually the numbers on the big screens in front of them started getting better, the total of projected electoral in Mr Bush's column steadily growing as the map of the country increasingly turned blue. Mr Kerry's numbers, meanwhile, did not seem to move.

"Before I got here I was quite worried but now I am more confident," said 18-year-old Eric Martin, a student from Houston, Texas, standing with some fellow students from George Washington University, listening to a series of country and western bands that were entertaining the crowd.

"Fifteen minutes ago I thought it was going to be close but now I think Bush is winning."

Indeed Mr Bush appeared to be doing just that, as Gerald Willis and his wife Frances, sat in a room away from the band watching a different bank of screens. The couple were from north-east Alabama but lived in Washington because of Mr Willis' job as an official with the Department of Agriculture.

Mr Willis said he was confident that Mr Bush would win across the country. " I have been travelling all year and I have noticed how things are ," he said, in a deep, southern accent.

Quite what Mr Bush was thinking of all of this was not clear.

At some point during the evening a piece of pooled video footage was released showing the president sitting at the White House with members of his family, including his father, presumably watching the same bank of television screens that everybody else was watching.

Mr Bush's deputy, Dick Cheney, did after all, recently reveal that he was quite a fan of Fox News. "I'm very upbeat. I believe I am going to win," said a grinning Mr Bush. "It's going to be an exciting evening."

Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, said that before coming to the party he had spent the earlier part of the evening in the West Wing of the White House where reports suggested Mr Bush was very relaxed about the ongoing developments.

"The president has won the trust of the American people," he said. "[People think that] with the president what you see is what you get." (© Independent News Service)

Andrew Buncombe
in Washington

© Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/