I'm actually sitting in Barry Goldwater Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, and it's really fun to be writing about John McCain from his own home turf. Or the turf that some of his homes rest on, apparently.

This morning, John McCain announced the choice of his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Trapper John calls the choice Worse Than Quayle. The New York Times says Old Man John is "shaking up the political world at a time when his campaign has been trying to attract women."

What's truly remarkable here is just how much Hillary Clinton continues to form the political dialogue of the Presidential race. From the lavish praise heaped on her in Obama's aceptance speech yesterday to now providing the obvious rationale for John McCain's selection of a potential chief executive - Booman notes John McCain's age and health issues, impolite, but necessary - Hillary Clinton is still driving the narrative of this campaign.

This year, the head of the New York delegation to the convention is, as he has been every four years since 1996, Sheldon Silver, the Speaker of the Assembly.

The man can't give a decent speech to save his life. How well he represents a state on the cusp of real change, given his ironfisted control of the Assembly, with all that implies - abysmal approval ratings, legislative gridlock, unaccountable legislators, the most dysfunctional state government in the union - is open to question. Whether Sheldon Silver is really the face we want to present to the world, when we have real superstars - Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer - really isn't debatable. He's not. If it's possible to exude stasis, Silver has managed it.

The head of the New York State Democratic Party is David Paterson, the governor. He should be the one to lead the party to the next convention.

Senator Schumer with Markos Moulitsas and contributing editor brownsox of Daily Kos.

The narratives emerging from last night's nomination spectacle are complex, but here's one that may be overlooked amidst all the unity hype and Clinton genuflection: speaker after speaker drew an arc of emancipation that stretched from women through native Americans to blacks and, now finally included in the line-up, gays and lesbians. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, all mentioned the fight for equality that has taken gays and lesbians out of the shadows of American life, and embedded it firmly in the long history of other Americans fighting for equality before the law.

Considering that history - Bill Clinton signed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, a discriminatory piece of legislation unconstitutional on its face, and even ran ads campaigning on that signature - that's a remarkable development.

And today, on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech, as America somewhat disbelieving prepares to elevate a black person to the pinnacle of power, the American family continues to expand. There's still a rocky road ahead, and we may never reach the conclusion of it; it's naive, for example, to believe that Barack Obama's nomination alone will exorcise forever the demons of racism. But today, this great, troubled nation of ours stands on the mountaintop and looks towards a promised land.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, rehearsing his glittering oratory.

Harlem Senator Bill Perkins, one of Obama's original (and at the time, few) backers in New York, in the Pepsi Center, having the last laugh.

Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) liveblogging.

Governor Christine Gregoire (D-WA), addressing the hippies bloggers.

Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana.

And here's our very own Deni Frand.

Via Albany Project, Craig Johnson in Denver.

Oh, here they are: Hillary deadenders, traitors and republicans, chanting on the streets. Not ready to move on, apparently.

Senator Clinton just called for and end to the roll call vote and moved that the convention nominate Barack Obama by acclamation.

The motion passed, and it was done: the Democratic Party has nominated a black man for the Presidency.

Inside the convention hall, yesterday.

Markos and Ned Lamont.

Scandal! In bed with Liza Sabater!