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 […]

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DATELINE: Fort Stockton, Texas
Some fun facts about Texas: it was a Republic between 1836 and 1845. It only joined the Union on the conditions that it could secede whenever it felt like it, and that it could divide itself into five smaller states whenever it felt like it, like some kind of constitutional Hydra. These […]

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DATELINE: Houston, Texas

Obama cleaned up in South Carolina last night. Most of the mainstream media’s talking heads will spend the next week prattling on about the significance of the black turn-out, and whether Obama’s success will be replicated in states with smaller African American communities. Please ignore this prattling.
“It’s not about colour, it’s generational” said […]

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DATELINE: New Orleans, Louisiana
A week before we hit New Orleans (correct pronunciation: ‘N’orlins’), I got an email from a concerned British friend saying the following:
“I cannot emphasise how careful you should be - stay in the French Quarter, do not leave it on any account! And even then be really careful. It’s not just ‘haha […]

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DATELINE: Tallahassee, Florida
In our unstinting quest to unearth at least one Republican during this trip, we made south from beautiful, ghostly Savannah, Georgia, hoping to see John McCain speak on Monday afternoon in Jacksonville, Florida (Florida’s hugely important primary is on 29 January). The dour, flyover-scarred city is the largest in the United States, and […]

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