the irish lass

Good Luck Charm

What a wild night! In a combo of anxiety and anticipation, we had been been on pins and needles all day. Finally it's 8:00 and we head over to the campaign headquarters to wait for the returns. We were feeling pretty good but extremely nervous.

The campaign didn't have a good system to keep the party guests informed about how it was going. There were half a dozen people crowded around the computer looking at the election sites, but for the 100 or so guests, at the initial snap, things looked pretty bleak. I had thought that Rico needed to be 20% ahead in the early absentees to win, and he was only up about 17% so we were still in the game, but I needed numbers. I started getting the info the old fashioned way - calling the registrar of voters and writing down the numbers on a napkin. Sacramento County contained 85% of the voters in the district, so I ignored the rest.

with 53/428 precincts reporting

Oller 39.2
Ose 35.9
Lungren 23.3

with 64/428 precincts reporting

Oller 39.1
Ose 35.7
Lungren 23.4

with 100/428

Oller 37.9
Ose 33.3
Lungren 27.1

Dan is sitting at the computer and I go up to him with my napkin -- Look we're closing the gap with less than 25% of the vote in. We're winning every precint. He takes my napkin and it takes me a half hour to get it back. ;^D

with 120/428

Oller 37.0
Ose 32.2
Lungren 29.1

then we passed Mary

with 152/428

Oller 36.1
Ose 30.6
Lungren 31.4

then we passed Rico

with 216/428

Oller 34.0
Ose 28.4
Lungren 35.8

Now we lead by almost 2,000 votes in Sacramento

with 264/428

Oller 33.1 --- 12,853
Ose 27.3 --- 10,602
Lungren 37.6 --- 14, 607

Now that we're in the lead, my napkin is very messy and there's no more room to write the numbers.

We ended up with
Oller 31.4 --- 18,348
Ose 24.7 --- 14,491
Lungren 42.0 --- 24,585

Dan's a big Elvis fan - so here's a song for him. He had all his good luck charms around last night ... his wonderful wife Bobbi, his son, daughters, daughter-in law and grandbaby, his brothers, sister, niece and nephew and many friends.

Good Luck Charm

Don’t want a four leaf clover
Don’t want an old horse shoe
Want your kiss ’cause I just can’t miss
With a good luck charm like you

Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
A-hanging on my arm
To have, to have, to hold, to hold tonight

Don’t want a silver dollar
Rabbit’s foot on a string
The happiness in your warm caress
No rabbit’s foot can bring

Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
A-hanging on my arm
To have, to have, to hold, to hold tonight

If I found a lucky penny
I’d toss it across the bay
Your love is worth all the gold on earth
No wonder that I say

Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
A-hanging on my arm
To have, to have, to hold, to hold tonight