It still really hasn't hit me that Barack Obama has actually won the Democratic nomination. That's sort of odd in a way, because it has seemed so clear to me for so long (since the Potomac Primary four months ago, at least) that he was going to win.

And now he's actually won, and Hillary Clinton, however grudgingly, has accepted it. I guess her performance on Tuesday night took away somewhat from the euphoria of the moment. I was pretty pissed off at her for bigfooting all over such a special evening, but now that a little bit of time has passed, I'm no longer pissed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any excuse for the way she handled the night, but in the long run, I think we're better off that she did what she did because by crossing so far over the line, she actually pushed many of her supporters away; in her effort to divide, she may actually have sped up the process of unifying the party. It would be a fitting epitaph for her campaign. (In another fitting piece of symbolism, she wore what appeared to be an all black pantsuit today.)

So even though she may have made Tuesday a bit less pleasant than it could have been, at least she effectively killed her chance at getting the VP nod, or at least gave Obama a great excuse for not picking her, since I think her chances were already nil. It would have been different if she had stunned the political world last night and conceded the nomination and promised to fight her heart out for Barack. But now, nobody will blame Barack for skipping over her, at least nobody other than people like Bob Johnson and Lanny Davis. (Great line about Bob Johnson via Jake Tapper: "What, Geraldine Ferraro wasn't available?")

The other thing that distracted me a bit on Tuesday night (albeit in a good way) was the World's Worst Speech by John McCain. Some people might try and spin at at having set a low bar for McCain's rhetorical abilities...but nobody would have ever intentionally given such a pathetic performance, especially not one that reinforced every negative stereotype about your campaign.

But McCain's lame speech also got me a fired up, because for the first time in my life, the Democratic Party could win a massive landslide victory in the fall if things play out right -- and if it happens, it won't be a landslide for some DLC-branded politician, it will be a landslide for Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that is far closer to the grassroots than it has ever been in my lifetime.

In a broader historical context, probably the most remarkable thing about Barack's nomination is that he is likely to become the first African American president of the United States of America. On a personal level though, I hardly even noticed that on Tuesday; I don't mean to minimize his accomplishment, but when I look at Barack Obama (not in the visual sense, but the broader sense), I don't see someone who is running to be the first black president; I see someone who could be the first president since JFK and LBJ or perhaps FDR to bring about enduring change.

The Clinton years were good years for America, but the Clinton presidency was ephemeral; as effective  as he was in the moment, virtually nothing significant from Bill Clinton's administration persisted under George Bush.

Obama, on the other hand, seems to recognize that this moment in America's history is one of those moments where we can actually achieve something fundamental, like the New Deal, like the civil rights movement. There's so much to be done: domestically, health care, education, growing gap between the super-rich and everybody else; and internationally, repairing Bush's mismanagement of the American empire and addressing global environmental threats.

There was a time that was very skeptical of Obama, but as I've watched him campaign, and as I've seen him make political decisions, my respect has grown, tremendously. He's the first presidential candidate I've seen who, while being a masterful politician, doesn't accept the "rules" of how you are supposed to do things. The gas tax debate in Indiana was a perfect example; the typically expedient thing would have been to hedge on the issue, denying Hillary Clinton a line of attack. Instead, he decided to fight, to turn it around. To use the Obama-Jujitsu. It's a thing of beauty. He seemed to relish it, too, and I think many of us fed off of that enthusiasm. And if it weren't for those dang McCaniacs, he would have won Indiana. But no matter, he won the nomination.

Anyway, I'm running on a little bit here, but the thing I intended to say when I started writing this is that the thing that makes me feel best about Barack Obama's victory is that for the first time that I can remember, a candidate that I really believe in and am willing to fight for has won the Democratic Party's nomination. I liked John Kerry, and I think he's grown tremendously since the campaign, but for me, 2004 was more about being against Bush than anything else. In 2000, Gore didn't excite me; I voted for him of course, but my political energies went towards a Senate campaign in Washington state, where my former boss at a software company was challenging Republican incumbent Slade Gorton. (After a recount, we won, which was a sweet victory, I had been press secretary for Ron Sims, who lost to Gorton six years earlier.) In 1992, I voted for Jerry Brown in the primaries after supporting Tom Harkin initially; in 1988 I supported Jesse Jackson (though I was just 15, so I didn't pay that much attention). Before that, I was too young, though I still remember Reagan's landslide victory in 1984.

So now I'm 35 years old and there's a candidate who I believe might actually be able to change this country for the better. His name is Barack Obama, and who knows, I could wrong, but I sure as hell want to give him -- and us -- every opportunity to succeed, and like you, I'm ready to fight like hell, because opportunities like this don't come around every day. We've got a chance, and we're going to take it, and do the very best we can. And with a little bit of faith, and a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work, we might actually finally get something done.