The party was already going when I got there. June and Woody showed up soon after with a fine cake that had Barry's logo built into the icing. The big news of the evening was that June and Woody are going to get married!



The outcome of the election was already clear. Jackie Speier was going to Washington as Tom Lantos replacement. There would be no runoff in May.



People were discussing how to take the vote. Mateus was saying that in Connecticut a result like that one would be a repudiation of Barry's message. Barry hadn't gotten that much press, but he had mailed out 60,000 copies of his flier to Greens living in the district. Ray was saying that Jackie Speier had done no mailings he knew of. I'm thinking now that in a special election like this one, turnout is the key. There just aren't that many Greens that will turn out just to support our candidate. (Getting them to vote for us when they are at the polls anyhow is much easier.) The Democratic faithful all went to the polls with instructions to vote for Jackie Speier. End of story. I wish there was more to it than that, but I doubt it.

  

Susan King thought watching the news would be a great idea. The coverage was dominated by the Olympic Torch story. It had just been put out a couple of times in France, and was going to be in San Francisco the next day.

  

When they got around to discussing the election, they didn't even mention Barry Hermanson. I know how disappointing that feels. When I can in fifth out of five running for Congress in 1992 I had gotten even less attention. Two people came to my election night party that time, Laurie and her daughter Kira. At least Barry got a party that was worth something.

     

They spent more time talking about how Jackie Speier had survived the Jonestown massacre in Guiana then they did on what she will do in Congress.

I gave Barry the Oklahoma quarter I'd brought for him. I've thought about the idea "we did something" from so many angles that giving him that coin is the nearest thing to sharing my feelings about change with you (dear reader) I can come up with. Many hundreds (thousands?) of people had just voted for Barry, and I respect that.

Bruce Wolfe was the only other Candidate at the party. He's running for San Francisco School Board.