The most important thing about Congressman-elect Stephen Lynch’s victory party at Moseley’s on the Charles Tuesday night was the mere fact that it took place.

When Lynch won the Democratic primary on September 11, the South Bostonian held only the most low-key gathering at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall. Tuesday night in Dedham, by contrast, Lynch supporters munched on tasty pastries and chicken wings of numerous varieties, and sucked down cold bottles of Budweiser. The hall, festooned in red, white, and blue, was packed with politicos, union activists, and other assorted Lynch loyalists. Even former Boston Globe political columnist David Nyhan showed up — a reassuring symbol of a more peaceful era. The Lynch team piped in old favorites over the sound system — Neil Diamond’s " Coming to America, " the Monkees’ " Daydream Believer, " lots of Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra. They played Lee Greenwood’s " God Bless the USA " twice during the evening. Some reporters rolled their eyes, but the corny tunes served as the musical equivalent of comfort food — background music that allowed the political class a sense of normalcy.

" People are really making an effort to return to normal, " said State Senator Marian Walsh of West Roxbury. " I think they realize we’re in a long-term conflict, and they’re concerned about the war, but they want to get back to their lives as well. "

Lynch, who will travel on Tuesday to the Capitol (where some legislators are receiving doses of anthrax in the mail), took the podium shortly after 10 p.m. " This campaign began as a much different campaign, in the days before September 11, before the world changed, " he said. He returned to a grace note he had used during the last weeks of the campaign against Republican Jo Ann Sprague: " We see ourselves not as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans. "

When Lynch finished his speech, to applause from the audience, someone put on Kate Smith’s World War II–era version of " God Bless America. " Some attendees sang along with Smith as they walked out. The scene seemed to mirror the finale of the film The Deer Hunter, in which members of a small Pennsylvania mining town broken apart by the Vietnam War sing the same song. Both gatherings, the fictional and the real, represented an attempt by Americans to reclaim their lives in the face of adversity. That’s really what Lynch’s Election Night " time " was about.

Issue Date: October 18 - 25, 2001