Thanks. You made tears come to my eyes reading that.

I think MGK has brought all this up in the past, too.

1) Obama isn’t “black”, he’s black, white, and middle eastern. Apparently the “one drop of black blood means your black” rule still applies? Technically, he’s the first biracial president, which is important because….

2) The prejudice against biracial individuals was so bad that some part black multiracial people would chose “other” when asked their race; they didn’t consider themselves either white or black, because neither truly accepted them.

That Obama got so much support from black voters is hopefully a sign that they too are moving past some of their collective racial issues.

I had wandered back up to the front of the office, having collected a new beer, and came across a knot of people in the phone bank watching Fox News in vicious humor. Someone repeated the newest vote totals. I asked what happened, that McCain had shot up so much while Obama had held relatively still. My organizer, Carli, told me that Texas had been called for McCain and okay, we shrugged, no giant shocker. But then she said, you know, it’s still really amazing, returns are showing Obama has 46% of the vote there.

And it was like a switch had flipped in my very tipsy head. Somewhat caught up in the moment, I grabbed Carli by the shoulders.

“Do you know what this means?” I blathered drunkenly. “Somebody mobilized the Hispanic population to vote for a black man! Jesus Christ! It’s different! There are new rules! It works differently now!”

Carli gave me the hug I probably needed at that point.

Now, how correct I am in that assessment is a matter of debate — it’s certainly no giant feat to get lower-class Hispanics to support a democrat. But just this idea that we had overcome not only racially-driven antipathy, but possibly racially-driven apathy was like a bolt from the blue, making clear what had been the real shocker of the day — we tilted the axes of the world. American politics, from this day out, are a different beast now, with different strategies, different models, and different nuggets of wisdom. There’s an incredible amount of untapped potential right now, an incalculable current ready to bring us to life or burn us to a crisp.

Maybe a remark made out in the parking lot over post-California cigars sums it up better.

“Ten years down the line, when they’re writing social studies books, tonight will be where they put the paragraph break.”

Ive been quoting your “America can lap the rest of the world” statement to my fellow Texans since you mentioned it back during the primaries. Thank you again, for saying this so eloquently.