Working on a Dream

If dreams came true, wouldn't that be nice...

Forty-five-and-a-half years later...

A Little Color

Forty-Four

Barack Hussein Obama was just elected the 44th President of the United States of America.

For the first time in our country's history, an African-American will hold the highest elected office in the land.

Beyond that historic event, honor and dignity will be restored to the White House, after eight disastrous years of Bush-Cheney and the tragic national nightmare of Bill Clinton's second term.

It's been a long time coming, but change has come.

V-O-T-E

History will be made on Tuesday.

The people of the United States will either elect a Democratic ticket that will make an African American the 44th President of the country, or they will elect a Republican ticket that will result in a woman becoming the country's first Vice President.

No matter where one falls on the political spectrum, as citizens we have a civic duty to exercise the right to select our representatives and offer our opinion on various measurements, propositions, etc. that are up for debate.

Exercise your right. It's priceless.

I'll be voting for "that one."

Next

Barack the Vote: Down to "The Wire" Edition

The cast of television's finest show ever encourage residents of the state of North Carolina to v-o-t-e.

History

June 3, 2008.

Barack Hussein Obama is the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency of the United States of America.

"Not this time."

Obama in Philly, planting his flag in history ...

"Nobody knows, the trouble I've seen..."

Today's top political story: Barack Obama wins the Mississippi Democratic primary over Hillary Clinton, according to projections by NBC News.

As of this posting at roughly 8:30 pm PT on Tuesday night, Obama led Clinton by 20 percentage points, with 92% of precincts reporting.

Hillary supporter Geraldine Ferraro is no doubt thrilled.

In other news, the FBI alleges that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer -- who was revealed yesterday to be an alleged client of a high-end call-girl -- was allegedly a frequent customer who might have paid the prostitution ring as much as $80,000 for hookers. Stay classy, Governor!

Weekend of Upsets

There was no full moon, nor was it April Fool's Day, so it must have been the onset of daylight savings time in the U.S. that caused this weekend's trip into Bizarro-land.

To wit--

* In English soccer, current Premiership titleholders Manchester United were unceremoniously bounced out of the season-long FA (Football Association) Cup tournament on Saturday by Portsmouth, which won for the first time in 51 years at United's home ground, Old Trafford.

* Continuing on that side of the pond, English second-division club Barnsley -- which plays in the English Championship division, which is roughly the equivalent of Triple-A compared to Major League Baseball -- continued its amazing run of knocking off the big boys in the FA Cup. Barnsley followed up their shocking road defeat of Premier League stalwarts Liverpool at Anfield by claiming another Premier League scalp in defeating London giants Chelsea.

* Back in the U.S., the seventh-ranked Stanford men's basketball team lost by 13 points to the University of Southern California at the Galen Center in downtown Los Angeles.

* Across town, the UCLA Bruins narrowly escaped an epic upset of their own, rallying from four down with 20 seconds left to beat the California Bears in a thrilling -- and highly controversial -- ending.

* USC's wildly hyped freshman guard O.J. Mayo and UCLA frosh phenom Kevin Love both hinted that they might not leave school after one year, after all. My guess is they're both gone, but stay tuned.

* Setting the chutzpah bar pretty high, Hillary Clinton, currently running second in the race to become the Democratic party's nominee for president, found it appropriate to offer Barack Obama -- current leader of the popular vote, current leader in elected delegates and current leader in primary/caucus states won -- the number two spot (Vice President) on the Democratic ticket in November. Obama declined. Never let it be said that Hillary doesn't have balls, but the entitlement act is wearing thin.

* Actor Jason Statham has been in some good movies ("Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," "Snatch," "The Transporter" and "The Italian Job," among others), but he's also been the only watchable thing in some real dogs, such as "Cellular," "Crank," "London" and others. His latest film, "The Bank Job," looked like another one of the misfires, but to my sheer delight, it was a crackling heist/gangster saga in the vein of "Sexy Beast" and "Layer Cake," coupled with the intrigue of the best spy movies. In the happy upset of the weekend, I fookin' luv'd it.

All of these unlikely events couldn't top today's head-scratchers, though.

* New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, the highly successful former prosecutor who rode to the statehouse after a career spent rooting out corruption, crushing organized crime and breaking up prostitution rings, is about to find the shoe on the other foot. Today, The New York Times broke the news that Spitzer was caught on a federal wiretap arranging for a hooker to visit him at a Washington, D.C. hotel last month while he was in the nation's capital for business. Nice.

* In more wholesome news, the men's hoops team at my brother's alma mater -- the University of San Diego -- won the West Coast Conference tournament championship on their home floor tonight, beating the number 22-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs and earning a trip to the NCAA tournament. March madness, indeed! Go Toreros!

"Sheeeeeeeeit."

With apologies to Isiah Whitlock, Jr. -- who plays Clay Davis, one of the more colorful characters on HBO's "The Wire" -- for purloining his signature catchprhase for the title of this post, but the projected results of today's Presidential primary contests in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island are in, and the news isn't great for we Barack Obama fans.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is projected to have won the Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island primaries, stemming a tide of 11 consecutive losses to Obama, who had to settle for claiming Vermont tonight.

The Clinton campaign will now attempt to change the narrative, claim renewed momentum and turn its sights toward the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

Conversely, the Obama campaign will insist that the net delegate picture hasn't changed after tonight's events and that his commanding lead makes it highly improbable mathematically for Clinton to overtake him in pledged delegates before the Democratic National Convention in late August in Denver.

Meanwhile, John McCain -- now the Republican nominee -- licks his chops in waiting as the Democrats threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as the increasingly divisive campaign rhetoric among Clinton and Obama is only sure to increase now.

"Sheeeeeeeit."

"The fierce urgency of now."

With today's victory in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has made it nine wins in a row over New York Senator Hillary Clinton. And the 10th straight win could be looming when polls close in a few hours in Hawaii.

Speaking tonight to supporters in Houston, Obama answered critics who suggested that he was too young and had plenty of time to run for president by noting that he wasn't doing so to fulfill some lifelong ambition, but because of Dr. Martin Luther King's notion of "the fierce urgency of now."

As Sam Cooke once noted, it's been a long time coming, but a change is gonna come.

I hope.

UPDATE: Hawaii goes for the native son, as Obama beats Clinton by nearly 50 percentage points. Trivia: Obama is a graduate of Honolulu's famed Punahou School, which also counts among its alums an infamous teenage golfer and this highly talented film and music video director.

Mo-mentum

Illinois Senator Barack Obama swept the Potomac Primary today, scoring wins over New York Senator Hillary Clinton among Democratic voters in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

It's amazing how quickly things change in politics. Not long ago, Clinton had a huge lead (almost 20 points) in all the national polls and was considered the inevitable Democratic nominee. Obama has slowly chipped away, essentially splitting the once-thought-to-be-decisive Super Tuesday primaries on February 5, and then going on a run of eight straight victories, including the Louisiana primary, Virgin Islands voting and Nebraska, Washington and Maine caususes over the weekend, leading to today's three-contest sweep.

Meanwhile, Senator Clinton has fired her campaign manager and seems to be adopting her own version of the Giuliani-Florida strategy, putting all her eggs into the Ohio and Texas primary baskets on March 4. In the meantime, Obama will look to continue his roll by scoring at the Hawaii caucus (ho braddah!) and Wisconsin primary next Tuesday.

The winds of change are blowing. The old road is rapidly aging, as an old troubador used to sing.

Here's a new road: "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

V-O-T-E

Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses are upon us, with citizens in 24 states hitting the polls February 5 to exercise their right to one of the most sacred privileges in American life: voting. In California, polls open at 7 am, with Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running neck and neck in the latest polls here, depending upon the source.

No matter who you support, get out and vote!

Oh, yeah. Go Barack!

Yes. We. Can.