Actors David Alan Basche and Alysia Renier are married to each other. They also star on the USA Network show The Starter Wife. And on Election Night, they were both co-hosts for the Rock the Vote party at Citrine, on West 21st Street.
Today, they told The Observer, they were walking down Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem, where they live and overheard a conversation among three men. “If [Barack Obama] doesn’t win, we’re going to tear this fucking city down!” one of them said.
Ian Drew, an editor-at-large at US Weekly, was feeling similarly ominous about the possibility of a loss by Mr. Obama. “If Obama doesn’t win, honestly, I think there’s going to be riots,” said Mr. Drew, who is 32. “People are incredibly emotionally attached to this election. I think there will be riots in the cities—maybe not in the middle of the country. Having traveled to the middle of the country I can’t believe the U.S. will do the right thing this year. People here don’t understand how disparate the people in the middle of the country are from people in the cities. They have no sense of other countries and they don’t care about dropping bombs on other countries.”
Actress Joy Lauren, who plays Danielle van de Kamp on Desperate Housewives, had brought a gaggle of her fellow Columbia University freshmen to the party. “I had the decision between being here tonight and watching stuff at Columbia with my friends,” she told The Observer. “But instead I brought all of my Columbia freshman friends to this bar,” where they could choose between drinks called the Obama-tini and the Maverick. But when The Observer asked the bartender what was in each, she admitted that they were both just vodka with different colored Rose’s lime juice liqueur.
