NH primary day.
Being blindsided sucks, and we were definitely blindsided in 08. I remember a lot of people thinking a commanding win, which the polls suggested was possible, would essentially hand us the nomination early and we'd be able to coast to the convention. Personally I never thought that, given the Clinton machine and the various things I had seen from them, but I definitely thought Obama would "probably" be the nominee if he won NH.
However things began to turn as results came in and we noticed we were under performing in multiple districts. Exit poll conversations showed that many voters were upset at how the media had treated Hillary, and some were upset with how Obama had treated her. I think that crying moment became a rallying cry for many women in the state who saw what they perceived as a fellow woman being treated unfairly.
The two biggest personal takeaways I remember from that night and the day after:
1. Veteran leadership matters. The Obama staffs were often quite young but we also had various people who had worked on campaigns decades before some of our people were born. Many of those people had experienced electoral defeats before and were a calming influence for the younger people who thought Obama was simply going to coast to victory.
2. The candidate matters. Obama's speech that night completely changed the narrative for many of us. Yes we had lost, but Obama rallied us back in a way I didn't even think was possible. It's hard to explain. I think that night was one of the defining moments of the campaign. I don't know of many politicians who could have done what Obama did in that speech, or the conversations he had with some staff folks in private afterwards. That was the night where I realized that I'd do just about anything for him.
