Is it really possible?

Sexy pic of Obama pretending to be Ursula Andress from Dr. No

...we actually won? By a freakin' landslide? Well, at least an electoral landslide? I'm so used to being a member of the Party of Perennial Whiffers and Professional Underdogs that it caught me completely off guard. The energy last night was palpable, all over West Hollywood. Trix and I took to our local watering hole to watch the coverage and imbibe with the locals. When Obama finally took to the podium to give his speech, there was -- seriously -- not a dry eye in the bar. I'll admit fully, I was one of 'em -- I welled up at least three different times during his speech, as well as when they showed Jesse Jackson with tears running down his face. Whatever you might think of the Rev. Jackson, it's been a long, hard struggle to get where we are today, and the man's been at the front lines the whole time. He paved the way for last night, even with "Hymietown." And seriously -- it has nothing to do with policy or social issues or really anything at all except the heart of the man, but how amazing was it that Obama referred to his wife as "his best friend for sixteen years?"

And isn't it nice to have a President Elect who can actually move you with his words? Rather than send you scurrying behind the couch in embarrassment and/or fear? I'll take "articulate." ** It's been eight years of "folksy," believe me, I will take "articulate." Not that McCain wasn't articulate -- I thought his speech last night was more than adequate, and a little charmingly self-effacing. They're both smart guys -- isn't it nice to bloody well force the country to choose between two smart guys, rather than one brainiac east-coast robot and one backwoods hick?

Random thoughts:

- Notice the difference: when McCain mentioned Barack Obama during his speech, the crowd either booed or began chanting angrily. When Obama mentioned McCain during his speech, the crowd applauded. I guess that just says the Democrats on hand were more polite than the Republicans on hand, maybe nothing larger, but hey -- at this point, I'm all for a little politesse.

- I felt a little smug, because I had to endure eight fucking years of people saying, of the VERY close race in 2000 and the semi-closeish race in 2004 "Well, if your guy was GOOD ENOUGH, he would have been able to beat the opposition by a landslide." Um -- HA. HA HA HA HA HA HA. HA. HA. HA.

- In Texas -- TEXAS, where apparently polls showed that 30% of people believed Obama was a Muslim -- McCain only won by 55% - 44%. Notice the county breakdowns. Obama won in the south of Texas -- where he undoubtedly scored oddly huge with Mexican immigrant voters -- and in the Big Cities. I mean, you HAVE to call it a landslide when Texas actually plumps that much for the Democrat. Nothing against Texas -- I actually really dig the state, and have a lotta great things to say about time spent there -- but that's just a little bit of wow.

- I had to doink TWO MySpace friends this morning. One guy posted a bulletin about how he thought Obama was the Antichrist -- like the actual, biblical Antichrist -- and how we hadn't learned enough from Hitler and Stalin. His actual page claimed that we were now officially in "the great tribulation." DOINK. The other guy posted a thing about how "now we know who will bring about the end of the world in 2012 as foretold by the Mayans." DOINK.

- I'm FUCKING PISSED, however, that Prop 8 passed. My friend Ashley posted the most articulate thing I've yet read on the matter, so go there and read that. I'm just too angry at the moment, especially after seeing the pictures of the pro-Prop 8 people actually CHEERING that they took the right to marry away from people, and watching the TV ads the "Yes on 8" people ran, with a kid coming home from school saying she'd learned at school that a "prince could marry another prince." Dear frightened parents: I am going to teach my child that equality is the most important thing ever and that its totally okay for princes to marry other princes and princesses to marry other princesses. And then my child is going to totally infect your child with free thinking and there's nothing you can do about it. You can only fight against common sense and equality for so long. I think this election is proof of that.

- I'm kinda psyched about the Democratic president and the Democratic majority in the House AND the Senate right now. I want New Deal Liberalism, dammit, and I want it now. Also, I'm psyched that hemlines will now rise like they did during the Johnson and Clinton administrations. Yay on all that.

Morning in America, folks. I have to say, I feel pretty good about it all.

** I just wanna point out -- I'm using the word "articulate" in the sense of "compared to President Bush, who is exactly the opposite." It didn't even occur to me until this morning that using "articulate" to describe an African-American man can have severe racist overtones, so if anybody took it that way, I apologize. There's gotta be a better choice of words to describe someone who's able to put together cogent, interesting thoughts with words and speak them in public.