Dear Friend,

Hope this finds you well. It was an exciting day Tuesday, albeit a disappointment to the Democrats. For my family, it was a whirlwind tour of the state and a chance to participate in all the madness.

Monday afternoon, we drove down to the State Capitol in Richmond for a final GOTV rally. It was Sharon, me and our two girls in our Dodge Caravan. At 4:30 p.m., I spoke before a crowd of enthusiastic Democrats by the historic "Bell Tower" on the Capitol grounds. The Governor Mark Warner and Lt.

Governor Tim Kaine also spoke. The mood was festive, and the signs were everywhere. We thought we were going to win.

A few minutes later, I stopped by a House of Delegates prayer reception organized by Rev. David Anderson of Capitol Ministries at the Old City Hall in Richmond. I was heartened when the Speaker of the House, a Republican, asked the audience to "pray for our country" on the eve of the Election. I agreed to do that.

We drove down to Virginia Beach that night to open the polls the next day for my friend David Ashe, who was running for the open 2nd Congressional seat. I arrived at 6 a.m. at Salem High School and the line of voters was already out the door. I was all alone with about 1,000 voters for most the morning. I was impressed with how many of the early voters were African-American. The word was out: get there early to have your ballot counted. Later in the morning, the crowd began turning more Republican and stayed that way. David ended up losing with 45% of the vote.

Later, we headed back home. As I was driving back, I was getting the Fairfax City vote totals from Dan Drummond, who had been leading round-the-clock turnout efforts in the City over the past several weeks.

We got back home prior to the polls closing, then went to Il Lupo restaurant to catch the early local returns. They were good. Within an overall state defeat, the City Democrats had a great win: capturing 51% of the City's vote to achieve the first Democrat victory since 1964.

We drove to the Sheraton Premiere where the numbers started coming back.

They weren't all that good, at least in Virginia.

At 10 p.m., we headed home. Now, the next election cycle has started.

Best regards,

Chap Petersen (electronic mail, November 5, 2004)