Updated at 7pm Pacific

It’s all but over. Watch any of the news channels and see everybody spinning their wheels because the big race is done, and Barack Obama is President of the United States of America. Pressed to find a mathematical way for John McCain to win, CNN’s John King just could not.

So I don’t feel premature in saying to you: congratulations. You did it. You made a statement, and a beautiful one. You shed the fear and hate and chose hope. You took a chance, and you took it for a better future, an America that’s a little bit closer to fulfilling its longstanding promise.

And I also want to say: thank you. For the last eight years it’s sometimes been tough to remember what it is about America that’s so great. We’ve seen some of the ugliest elements rise to the top, we’ve seen the national mood dominated by division and racism and hate, and tonight you chose everything that is the opposite of that. Tonight you decided you had enough of the negativity and the ignorance and you embraced the positive. Thank you for reminding me how much I fucking love this place, and the people living in it.

Tomorrow it’s all about movies again, but tonight I’m toasting you guys for doing the right thing.

We live in a country that elected a black president. America has grown up.

This is the real America.

Old: Are you sitting home alone watching Wolf Blitzer chatting with preposterous holograms? Join your fellow CHUD readers in our Chat Room right now and celebrate (or commiserate) together.