AMERICA'S ELECTION: THE VIEW FROM LONDON, PART 3

In our third and final instalment of election-gazing from across the pond, Jakob von Baeyer writes about the hand-wringing at a house-party, everyone waiting to exhale ...

There were hotdogs, doughnuts and bottles of Bud on offer, as well as strong cups of coffee for what was expected to be long, tense night.

In a flat in a leafy North London neighbourhood, we gathered to watch the results of the American election. We were a group of British professionals in our 20s and 30s--Obama supporters, all--with plans to spend the evening gazing at a television, on tenterhooks. It was a party like thousands of others throughout the city. We were queasy with hope.

The memory of what happened four years ago was still fresh in all of our minds. "I know what the polls say, but I'm still nervous," said David, a 27-year-old Londoner and a member of our dedicated television-glued group. "I stayed up four years ago and look what happened. Eight years ago I didn't and look what happened. I don't know what to do."

Yet shortly after midnight, when the numbers began to go solidly Obama and throngs of Obama supporters began to flow into Grant Park in Chicago, our party began to thin out like the stands at a lopsided football match. It was the timely relief no one dared to expect. David, who had been intently seated on the couch, quietly slipped on his shoes.

The death knell for McCain came later, when Fox News projected so-goes-the-nation Ohio for Obama. Simon Schama, an historian, then asked the moderator of the BBC's coverage, "So are they going to call the election now?"

Historic, yes, the earned buzzword of the night, and perhaps for weeks to come. But for the dwindling numbers of Londoners huddled around the television, America electing its first black president was only part of what they wished for.

"I do still like McCain," said Vahlia, a 26-year-old neuroscientist who recently moved to the UK from Argentina. "But I really want him to loose Arizona [his home state]. I don't hate him, but I hate that he's a Republican. And I hate that he chose Palin." For many, this election was a referendum on eight years of Republican politics under the Bush administration.

Christopher Hitchens, another of the BBC's all-star cast of pundits, provided the party its quip of the night: Palin "can't tell the difference between Nicholas Sarkozy and Inspector Clouseau" (referring to the phone prank the vice presidential hopeful succumbed to recently, in which a comedian impersonated the French president).

As the mood lightened, glasses of wine were topped up, and still more headed for the door. Tomorrow, finally, was a new day.

Picture credit: unusualimage/flickr

(Jakob von Baeyer is a writer based in London.)