E-Mail This Article to a Friend RALLYING THE TROOPS The celebration that wasn't BY CAMILLE DODERO

On Election Day, the Kerry campaign announced that the public was welcome to attend its Copley Square rally and concert, a star-studded bill featuring James Taylor, Carole King, Black Eyed Peas, and Jon Bon Jovi. But in truth you needed tickets or press passes to stand in places where you could see the stage or the JumboTron. So what seemed like open-armed come-one-come-all largesse wasn’t like getting on the VIP list. It was more like getting invited to a house party and then being told you can watch through the windows.

And so voters who decided to take the campaign up on it, most in their 20s, squished into Copley Square’s every crevice and cranny. They stood on any available elevated object: mailboxes, park benches, fences, trash barrels, sculpted animals, stone structures. They scaled the cabs of 10-wheeler trucks, clambering onto their back wheels, dirtying their sneakers with grease. They piled on each other’s shoulders until folks shouted them down. They gathered together on the grass near Trinity Church, where trees, metal detectors, and a parked rental truck made it impossible not only to see the stage, but even to watch the JumboTron. But they stayed. This was the presidential election and a hometown boy was in the running. And so the point was to be here, to be in the presence of history being made.

Meanwhile, the JumboTron flashed back to election results intermittently. For the first couple of hours, it aired only Kerry victories: Kerry leading in Pennsylvania with 66 percent! So people had to learn about losing results by calling friends, checking their text messages, or listening to transistor radios. At around 9:15 p.m., a young man with an earpiece declared, "We’re losing, but that’s expected this early." A young woman with a ponytail tucked in an orange Nike hat didn’t understand why losing was okay. "It’s like the early stages of a chess game when the players are moving the pieces, but nobody’s really winning or losing," he explained. "Oh," she said. She didn’t sound like she believed him.

By 9:30 p.m., word in the crowd was that Ohio would be the new Florida. By then, the assembled Kerry supporters had grown impatient with having to stand on their tiptoes. The musical guests were nearly inaudible from way back on the grass, so people considered leaving. Said one man in a green hat: "Watching this in my living room is starting to be attractive."

The atmosphere grew tense around 10:30. When an invisible newscaster announced that presidential candidate Ralph Nader "didn’t seem to be doing as well as he did in 2000," people booed.

But then the returns from Ohio and Florida started coming in. A kid in a Bush mask hanging from a tree saw that the president was in the lead in both key states. "Who’s going to DC?" he shouted from above. "I’m selling my laptop for a bus ticket if Kerry doesn’t win. You’ll see me in the newspapers." He didn’t say what he intended to do to get in the newspapers.

At 10:40 p.m., when it was announced that Bush was leading in Ohio with 53 percent of the vote, someone cried, "I hate Ohio. Kill it!"

An hour later, rumor was that Florida had turned blood red. Slowly, the crowd started to leave. Voices could be heard conspiring to give Florida back to the Cubans.

At 1:30 a.m., after Jon Bon Jovi tried to lift spirits with "Livin’ on a Prayer" and the Wendy’s that had stayed open nearly ran out of meat, people still loitering on Boylston Street discussed becoming expats. "I’m moving to Berlin next spring," said a law student in specs. "I swear."

"It’s sad that America is that bad that you have to move to Germany for democracy," lamented his friend.

Loyalists tried to keep the faith, but the crowd had dwindled severely by 2:15, when six clean-cut Young Republicans came to gloat on the edge of Copley Square. One, a male college student with a crew cut, waved a Bush-Cheney sign arrogantly for a camera. From far away, people gave him the finger.

Not long after, John Edwards appeared before the faithful and said the Democrats would wait until every vote was counted before they’d concede. He was concise. The hundreds of folks remaining realized it was time to go. Some said good night to one another, even though it wasn’t.