In a scene reminiscent of a sports bar during the NHL playoffs, hundreds of excited U.S. Democrats crowded into the Yaletown Brew Pub last night to cheer Barack Obama to victory in last night’s U.S. federal election.
“It has got to be one of the most momentous occasion in U.S. history,” said Sean Lauer, co-chair of Democrats Abroad in Vancouver.
Throughout the pub, cheers roared out anytime CNN projected a state for Obama. Ovations also went up when Obama was shown leading in key battleground states like Florida.
A brewpub staffer said it was one of the few times the TVs weren’t tuned to the Vancouver Canucks game.
Barb Clausen, who voted for the first time in a U.S. election since she emigrated from California in 1968, said the atmosphere in the pub reminded her of people watching a sporting event — “a very serious sport.”
“It’s historic,” Clausen said. “This could change the U.S. and the world.
“Obama represents a real shift in thinking and policy that could really change how the United States operates as a country and therefore how the world operates around it.”
Lauer said Americans living in Vancouver have been volunteering their time over the past nine months, helping people register to vote and, more recently, calling people in battleground states.
“What’s happening in Vancouver is a microcosm of what is happening everywhere,” Lauer said. “I don’t think you can minimize that. People are cynical and apathetic about politics. It’s changing, and if Obama wins, it has the potential of something really great.”
