President Bill Clinton made history on Tuesday night -- only two other Democrats have ever won re-election in this century -- but the mood of his supporters who turned out in great numbers at San Francisco's Paradise Lounge was sober and bittersweet.
Before Clinton's 9 p.m. victory speech, people mingled in small groups around televisions, curious to know how the local election results were going, which seemed to matter most because they already knew the presidential winner.
After watching the president's television appearance, which lasted for 21 minutes, Mayor Willie Brown, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein gathered on stage to address the crowd, amid heightened anxiety.
Calling Clinton and Vice President Al Gore "linebackers," and dubbing the win the most "gracious of victories," Brown elicited laughter by saying, "You've heard (Bob) Dole do what he does best -- concede."
But the crowd's mood was reflected in the wry smiles on the faces of the representative and the two senators.
Boxer seemed to be affected the most. Throwing some victory punches in the air as she approached the podium, Boxer tried to pump some enthusiasm into the anxious crowd by telling them that the Democrats had won one of the tightest Senate races.
The crowd was hyped to hear that Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts had overcome a fierce challenge from Gov. William Weld in one of the most hotly contested political races of the election.
In the middle of Feinstein's speech, an aide handed her a piece of paper.
"Oh my goodness, Bill Clinton is the winner in California," she said with a brightened face. The attentive crowd went wild, drowning out her speech with applause for more than a minute.
"Thank you for walking that walk to deliver the vote for Clinton," she said.
But Feinstein quickly retreated from the excitement of the moment by pointing out that Americans tend to take democracy for granted. She reminded the crowd that there are countries that do not have the type of political freedom enjoyed in the United States.
She added that democracy depends on an enlightened electorate that votes.
Despite the news that the Republicans were holding on to their majority in the House and Senate, and that the California measure to cut back affirmative action was winning, the crowd got into a party mood and danced to live music from a rock 'n' roll band.
Emma Oppenheim spent all day passing out leaflets and telling voters to vote no on Proposition 209. She looked euphoric when Mayor Brown gave her and her classmates attention.
"Don't read at your victory party," Brown said to the 15-year-old San Francisco high school student.
"It's my first time to be involved in the electoral process. I wanted to make a difference even though I can't vote," Oppenheim said. "Everybody in my school thinks it's exciting.
By 11.30 p.m., the party at Paradise Lounge was at its peak. Christine Pyston, 58, a self-described "Democrat cat," was still on the dance floor swinging her slender body to the beat of the music.
But the rest of the crowd was like Asher Miller and Valerie May. The two technical and professional writing majors at SF State sipped beers quietly on the dance floor, still mad over Proposition 209 passing.
"It's a complete fiasco. A lot of people didn't bother to read what it was all about," May said of the proposition.
"I feel good with a nostalgia of the old Democrat which was more to the left," said Mark Ewing, 30, who still hopped around 11 p.m. that the Democrats had a chance to win the House.
[ Golden Gater - November 7, 1996 ]
All Rights Reserved © 1996 HTML by Steve Thoemke (sthoemke@nermal.santarosa.edu)