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… but it finally happened.

I’ve never in my life wanted to be in Washington D.C. so desperately.  The live footage on MSNBC and CNN is just incredible, it looks like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.  It makes me wish I still lived within driving distance.  Instead I think I’m going to head to Interzone with my notebook; some of the employees were talking this morning about how they all want to watch it there, but they’d need computers to stream the video feed.  This doesn’t feel like the sort of occasion to witness alone.

On another note… the 20th Amendment was written after the advent of radio (and, by association, real-time nationwide media coverage).  Why in the world didn’t they adjust the time of the inauguration to be more amenable to folks on the west coast?

As discussed elsewhere, today Congress officially tallied the electoral votes from the 2008 presidential election and declared Barack Obama the victor with 365 out of 538.  It may just be a formality at this point, but still: as of today, Obama is officially the next President of the United States.  After the trio of presidential heartbreaks (Gore in 2000, Dean in the 2004 primaries, and Kerry is the 2004 general), I’m still having a little trouble believing this actually happened.

Barack Obama outside American Dream Pizza, in Corvallis, Oregon.

Related, it’s also awesome to see that Howard Dean is finally getting credit for designing and implementing his successful 50-state campaign strategy.  While mocked by traditional politicos, it resulted in Democrats realistically competing in races all across the country, rather than being confined to blue states and urban centers.  Not a bad way to vindicate yourself after what turned into a disastrous 2004 primary campaign.