DATELINE: Oakland, California
When we planned this trip, it always had definite bookends: the Iowa Caucus, at the start, and then Super Tuesday as the grand finale, the closest America has ever got to having a nationwide primary. With so many states voting on one day, it seemed like when the dust settled on 6 February [...]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Berkeley, California

The University of California at Berkeley is to political activism what Manchester is to rain; historically, it’s drenched in the stuff. It drips down the walls and gets into the water supply. Going back to the Vietnam protests and the formation of the Black Panthers in nearby Oakland, it’s famously a hotbed of [...]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Oakland, California
It’s D-Day eve, Mundane Monday, Calm Before The Storm Monday, and the most intense of the 22 migraine-intense battles going on when the polls open tomorrow morning is the contest for California’s massive haul of 370 pledged delegates – particularly in the absurdly tight Democratic race. Hillary Clinton had a substantial lead in [...]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Pismo Beach, California
Rolling into the pacific Pacific town of Pismo Beach (pop. 8,551) in early evening, we were beset by the usual travellers’ tiredness after the drive from Los Angeles – I was also recovering from Robert de Niro’s attempts to poison me, via some very dodgy veal and wild mushroom ravioli in his [...]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Los Angeles, California
Yesterday we took a few blissful, super-indulgent hours out of the trail to visit the world-famous San Diego Zoo. Watching the CNN debates had been like a towering plate of stinking, over-boiled cabbage, and the zoo was our ice cream sundae reward at the end of it. We were still looking for [...]

[Read more →]