Between a crazy few weeks at work, and the run-up to the election, I fell into one of those blogging wormholes. I’m only now beginning to emerge from it.

Like many Dems in Delaware County, I’m still stinging from the failure to make headway against the Big Red Machine at the County Courthouse. I’m sure that the coming few days will bring us various post-mortems and recriminations (rzklkng has one set), and I may end up with a few of my own once I’ve had a chance to reflect.

As much as I was pulling for David Landau and Frank Daly to punch through at the County level, I spent my day grinding at ward-level electioneering. My number one priority as a ward captain was getting out every last possible vote for our local Commissioner candidate. Nothing short of overall Board control was at stake in our ward’s race.

Our guy was running in his first ever election against a well-known and well-liked local guy with previous experience on the Board of Commissioners. In all honesty, it shouldn’t have even been a race. But I credit our candidate for his pavement-pounding stamina. He reached out and found a constituency of the loyal base plus all of the new, young families who have moved into town in the last half dozen years. If I had to describe our voter profile it was the “quality of life” voter.

I was having a friendly chat with the opponent’s wife around 6:00 PM. I predicted a squeaker based on the voters I’d seen at the polls. I was sure that it was within 40 votes. I knew from my strike lists that our voters were coming in, and some of the ones we’d called in the afternoon with reminders to vote showed up in the early evening. The Republican GOTV effort kicked into a higher gear in the last hour, and the local GOP boss was even placing calls in our Ward. The last half hour was not going our way.

In the end, our candidate won by 12 votes, 289-277. Unbelievable! And those 12 voters not only determined the ward race, they ultimately kept the Board of Commissioners in a 4-3 Democratic majority.

When I think of the year I spent on this little municipal election: collecting signatures on our candidates’ filing petitions, stuffing envelopes, doing lit-drops, and otherwise being a general nuisance to my less political neighbors, how relieved I am to know that in the end we left nothing on the table. A seven voter swing would have thrown the election, and the Township, the other way.

So while I still fret about the bigger fish to fry, I’m satisfied to know that a gang of grassroots volunteers and a really good candidate can pull off the upset victory.

For those of you who enjoy a cute quip from my son, here’s what the Democratic Lad said of our future commissioner on the way to the polls:

“I really want Matt to win, but I still think I want to vote for John Edwards.”