Fear and Loathing: A Brush With the Campaign Trail ’08
Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at 2:14 amJACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Record photographer and I got to the Jacksonville arena at about 8 a.m. on Nov. 3, Election Day eve. We finished our coffee and walked around to the press entrance. Several vendors had set up shop on the street, hawking T-shirts and hats. One young man, standing next to a colleague on a street with little foot traffic yet, held out a pink shirt that read, “The Real Deal.” Inside the arena, the estimated crowd of 9,150 exuded a sense that the man they were there to see was indeed that. But that anticipation stemmed not solely from who was scheduled to take the dais some time later but when: the day before an historic election following an epic campaign that, either way, would result in someone other than a white man being elected president or vice president for the first time.