John McCain, evidently,  is not accepting his defeat gracefully:
The meeting in the Capitol’s Strom Thurmond Room on March 11 was a Republican effort led by Sens. McCain of Arizona, John Thune of South Dakota, and Mel Martinez of Florida to reach out to Hispanics. But two people who attended the session say they were taken aback by McCain’s anger.
What began as a collegial airing of views abruptly changed when McCain spoke about immigration, according to these sources, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. Anonymity was also …

It’s 3:30 in the morning, and I’m drinking coffee before I head down to the Lincoln Memorial.  In approximately eight hours, Barack Obama will take the oath of office and America will have our first black president.  It is nearly impossible not to feel a thrill as I write those words.  How fitting and how beautiful that the Inauguration is part of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend, where we can be reminded of how far we’ve come.  The work is not done yet, but there is still a great …

I missed this tidbit about the 2008 elections, but it’s pretty cool:
The presidential election was not the only historic political moment last week: In New Hampshire, voters elected 13 women — out of 24 total members — to the state Senate, making it the country’s first state legislative body with more women than men.
That is pretty awesome, and shows some real movement on the part of the country-or at least for New Hampshire, since nationwide legislative bodies are still only about 25% female.  Building up equal or near-equal racial and …

By a vote of 137 to 122, the House Democratic Conference elected Henry Waxman the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, replacing John Dingell.  This is great news.  Dingell, from Detroit, is a good friend to the automakers.  He’s spent his chairmanship mostly trying to prevent any significant energy or climate change legislation to pass.  Waxman, the author of the Safe Climate Act, on the other hand, is fairly liberal and progressive and wants to move forward on strong climate change legislation.
This is great news.  Anyone who’s been …

The AP is calling North Carolina for Barack Obama, adding it to the extensive list of swing states that swung blue, and becoming one more example of our brand new map.  NBC has done so as well.  This is the first time in 8 election cycles they’ve gone blue.  President-Elect Barack Obama has now garnered 364 electoral votes, far above my 329 prediction, and they haven’t called Missori yet.  I’m ever so happy to have been wrong.

As we all try to fully comprehend the momentous, life-changing event that we’re going through, it’s comforting to know that some things will stay the same.  Chocolate is still delicious, warm socks still feel good, and Silvio Berlusconi can still provide comic relief.
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today praised Barack Obama, saying the U.S. president-elect is “young, handsome and also tanned.”
Berlusconi, speaking in Italian during a press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, said he was sure he would get along well with Obama …

Amazing.  I can hardly put into words how poignant, inspiring, and tremendously joyous last night was.  I still feel close to tears.  As one friend over last night put it, this is what it’s all about:

Today’s the day.  I’m getting ready to go to my first canvas shift.  I didn’t get home from Obama’s last rally until 2am.  Traffic was horrible because there were an estimated 90,000-100,000 people there.  This election has brought about a kind of excitement I’ve never seen, and shame on everyone who says that finally having an inspiring politician is a bad thing.  This is it, y’all.  We’re getting ready to go back to a Democratic president.  And we’re all getting to live through history.  I can’t wait to tell my …

Catching up on some reading, I noticed Skippy ruminating about the McCain camp’s unbridled/unhinged optimism heading into Tuesday. He goes on to quote John Dickerson over at Slate, dutifully reporting the uptick of that thing called, um, Hope on the Straight Talk Uncomfortable, Dangerous Local Express:
mcinturff released a memo yesterday that outlined his case for why it’s still possible for mccain to pull a rabbit out of his hat. here’s what he sees: his poll of battleground states shows obama with such a small lead, it’s within the margin of …

I was sitting in my apartment in Communist Country, just outside of Real Virginia , talking to my liberal elitist husband eating a salad made from arugula and other vegetables purchased at Whole Foods.*  And we are 100% sure that in the five years we’ve lived together we have not spent, combined, $150,000 on clothes and accessories.  In fact, between clothes, accessories, and furnishings in our apartment, it’s highly unlikely that total is above $150,000.
But then, unlike real, working-class Americans, we’ve never even bought anything at Neiman-Marcus.  As elitists, we …