Shhhh...Hear that?

That sound you have heard the last two days was the wind. The wind of change. And its been blowing hard and to the left.

As you have seen, my posts slowed considerably the last two days. I worked all day, poll watching at Florence 3 (The Beck Center), then I was with Wukela getting the results (and later, celebrating them). Yesterday, I was recovering from my celebrating.

How'd I do with my predictions? Ok, I guess. I got 9 out of 11 right. Right: Obama, Graham, Clyburn, Crawford, Fowler, Kirby, Williams-Blake, Powers and Wukela. Wrong: Cooper and Gregg. At least I think I got Cooper wrong. Reino gave me credit on it and I have been unable (and unwilling) to find any other numbers other than those linked to by the SCNow website. Last I saw, they had Lowe winning, so I'm counting it as a "wrong."

On the Lowe-Cooper race, I probably would not have picked Cooper to win had it not been those numbers I heard from him on Monday. Zach is a good man, with an absolute passion about education. He would have been a good rep in Columbia.

On the Boone-Gregg race, I am not shocked Jimmy lost, but I did think he would pull it out. At least until about 8:15 or so. That's when I drove over to the Coles Crossroads precinct, the Leatherman Center at Freedom Florence, to pull get the numbers. I can't remember what they were in the Sheriff's race, I was shocked at how big the margin was. Something like 900+ to 300+. Gregg killed it in the black precincts, which I thought he would (Note to Reino: Kenny does have trouble with the black community--at least according to the polls). Then I thought as long as he got 1/3rd of the white vote, he would win. I figured Jimmy would carry that over on the South Florence side. So when I saw that Gregg did not carry Coles, I knew he was in trouble. That's his home turf and he needed to win there. Regardless, it was an impressive win for Boone given what the climate of change he was confronting. Interesting tidbit: the one race not viewable on the printout tape left on the door? The mayor's race. Hmmm...Wukela won at Coles, where the voting takes place in the Leatherman Center, and he ran against Leatherman before, yet his is the only race that was obscured by the push-bar of the door. Coincidence?

On the City Council race, Glynn Willis made one hell of a run. Willis really worked his tail off to get within 350 of Powers. Reino ponders whether the last name hurt him. I doubt it. After all, Powers tied himself as close as possible to Frank Willis, even having Frank cut radio ads for him that were running pretty often the last couple of weeks. Glynn got done in by the numbers and the Obama push all democrats got.

Lastly, the Mayor's race. It seems like I point out a lot when people are showing no-class, so let me say this: Rocky Pearce showed a great deal of class Tuesday night. Right before we left Michael's, where we had our party, I got a call from Rocky's campaign wondering if we were still there. Rocky's campaign manager, Jesse Cartrette--a nice guy in his own right, said Rocky was about to be at the restaurant and he wanted to speak with Stephen personally. He arrived and very graciously conceded in person. It was a thoughtful gesture that went beyond what was called for. I certainly believe it would have been a lot easier to do over the phone. I know we were all impressed by it. My hats off to Mr. Pearce.

So should I quit my day job? Probably not. I'm a liberal and those winds of change are definitely blowing our way. Most of my picks were towards the left. But it has been one hell of a campaign season and I have enjoyed the hell out of it.

I have a camera full of pics from election day and night. I'll try to post them this weekend.