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 the state for months, but thanks to a recent surge from Obama, the electoral junkie’s four favourite words still play tantalizingly on the tongue: too close to call.

Arriving in San Francisco in mid-afternoon, we visited the legendary McSweeneys store and writers’ workshop – 826 Valencia. Lee, the self-confessed political geek behind the desk, was wearing an Obama badge, and ready to do some “get out the vote stuff” the following day. We leave the store and a guy walking ahead of us is carrying an Obama banner. We drive through the Mission District in the rush hour and a solitary guy holding a huge homemade banner bearing the legend ‘Si se puede – Obama 08′ is waving it in the midst of a crowded intersection. Given this rash of ad hoc, last minute campaigning, it’s ironic that the two official Obama events we have lined-up for the evening are MIA. The first, a wine and cheese event in wealthy Commercial Avenue, is nowhere to be found. We approach the house it’s supposed to be at, and it’s only partially lit, with a distinct lack of Obama signs outside. The place is also disconcertingly quiet – and if there’s one thing we’ve learned on this trip it’s that groups of Obama supporters cannot be left alone for more than five seconds without chanting something. Nervously, we ring the doorbell, and a gruff-sounding guy answers on the intercom:

“Hello?”
“Er, yeah, is this the Obama wine and cheese event?”
“No. Wrong house.”
“Okay, sor-” click. We tip-toe back to our car.

Next, the supposedly boombox-soundtracked Obama ‘visibility event’ on 4th street was neither visible nor audible, and thus pretty much as abject a failure as you could get. Ho hum. A good opportunity to rest up at my cousin Sam’s house in Oakland ahead of the big day, and talk to him and his wife Yael about the election. Sam has been let down by electoral politics before – most notably when door-knocking for John Kerry in 2004, only to see Bush re-elected, to his dismay. But this time, he’s pretty excited.

“For once, my vote actually counts for something!” Normally the combination of being a registered Green and a resident of a state with a late primary date has rendered the situation otherwise (and please, let’s spare a thought for the voters of South Dakota and Montana, who don’t get to vote until 3 June this year). Both Sam and Yael will be voting for Obama, both of them like his willingness to say something – however nebulous – about tackling global warming. “But Obama’s not actually that progressive” Yael says. “I mean, what are the actual differences between Obama and Clinton, policy-wise?” she asks, semi-rhetorically. We mull on this: the differences are really more in tone and character. And perhaps more importantly, electability.

“Well that’s it. If they’re up against John McCain… those Christian conservative voters who don’t like McCain, and were maybe going to stay home on election day [in November], will come out just to vote against Hillary, they really see her as the antichrist.” Obama, meanwhile, consistently does well among Republicans and independents, thanks in part to his determination not to couch things in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. It’s surprising, given Obama’s centrism, that he has come out in favour of granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, which is a huge issue in California, especially among Latino communities, but is also likely to incense the right. “I’m really pleased about that,” says Yael. “It shows he’s not pandering.”

The migraine is brewing, the troops are going over the top, and we’ll be right here, in the eye of the storm, in the heat of the battle, mixing metaphors like Tom Cruise mixing Manhattans in Cocktail.

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 Hollywood restaurant Ago. With tired legs and eyes, finding someone in an out-of-season resort town who was more interested in Super Tuesday than this afternoon’s Superbowl seemed like a pretty tall order. Thank heaven then for Sean, our waiter in Brad’s, an informal diner with excellent clam chowder and a smattering of happy-looking Sunday evening customers. Sean is 25, making the best of his eye-wateringly bad uniform shirt, and, fortunately, he has more than a bit to say about the election.

Originally from Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sean is normally a Democrat, but this time he’s happy to tell us he’s going to be voting for Ron Paul, “even though he’s a long-shot”. He likes Paul’s ‘no tax on tips’ policy that would help him out so much as a waiter, but it’s the Texan’s broader economic programme that has really impressed Sean. But if – more likely, when – Paul doesn’t get the Republican nomination?

“I’ll vote for whichever Democrat is against McCain,” he says, not having to think about this face-off too hard. “Either would be better than McCain. He’s no better than Bush basically.”

Really? You don’t think McCain’s got a slightly softer, more grandfatherly quality than the current President?

“Nah. He’s the kind of guy who’d shoot the black boyfriend you bring home.” he says, addressing our female friend.

When Sean registered locally two weeks ago, he got ten of his friends to sign up to vote too, and told them to go and research the candidates and pick one. “I don’t think I’ve persuaded any of them to vote Ron Paul unfortunately, but never mind,” he says, still pleased with his efforts – as well he should be. Because, you want to know what real patriotism is? It’s not sporting a ‘Boycott France’ bumper sticker, as we saw at a John McCain rally in Tallahassee; it’s Sean’s simple, selfless actions right there. Not to get all sanctimonious or anything.

*****

With 48 hours until the results come in on what the SF Chronicle is calling Super Complicated Tuesday (has any day in history ever had this many pseudonyms?), the tension is rising, the media are going nuts, and the USA’s fiendishly complicated system of delegates and districts is an algebraic albatross around every journalist’s neck. Super Tuesday has more permutations than I’ve had hot dinners. In light of this, it’s a shame that the US is ranked among the worst of the world’s industrialised nations at math(s).

In other news, you think Barack Obama’s a great speaker? Michelle Obama wipes the floor with her husband. Check out her speech at UCLA today, it’s powerful stuff.

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 political resonance in the animals though – the meerkats’ group-formation standing, sitting, and realignments was slightly like the Iowa Caucus without the shouting. The forlorn, displaced polar bears were a stark reminder of how tragically absent climate change has been from either party’s agenda. And, of course, the chimpanzees all looked like George W. Bush. Ba-boom-tsss. Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week – try the steak tips, don’t forget to tip your waitress.

After five exhausting, gleeful hours marvelling at the myriad wonders of the animal kingdom, in particular the phenomanally human way the chimp family interacted with one another, of course our next move was to go and meet supporters of a candidate who believes evolution is just a theory, to be taught alongside creationism in schools. After all, what better way to spend your first Friday night in a glamourous Californian city than by standing in the dark on a cold, busy intersection with sign-waving supporters of Mike Huckabee?

Well, the first people we met were a warm, friendly family of eight. Father of the tribe, Mark, is quite a talker: a rambling, laughing talker. A pro-life Christian who only drops his smile in 20 minutes of election chit-chat to say that he thinks abortion a horrible thing. He radiates humility, but is clearly very proud of his six home-schooled kids, all waving their home-made signs enthusiastically and screaming every time a car honks its horn. Mike Huckabee is the only one for Mark – “he tells it like it is, and unlike some candidates, he cares about the people at the lower end of the economic scale”.

But the unspoken truth for Huckabee supporters is their candidate is going out after Super Tuesday; indeed the odds seem to be pointing to a McCain victory, which would alienate vast numbers of conservative Republicans, most notably conservative Christians like Mark et famille.

So what does he think of McCain? He screws his face up in disgust. “People are only voting for him out of fear. They’re afraid – of Iran, of terrorism.. but that doesn’t make sense. It’s been six years since 9/11, and nothing else has happened. I don’t know what they’re doing to keep us safe – maybe I don’t want to know – but it’s working. Also McCain is not a traditional Republican. He’s co-authored a lot of bills with people who are anathema to Republicans, like Feingold and Kennedy.”

What about Romney then? The former Massachusetts Governor surely provides the better chance of a conservative Christian candidate securing the Republican nomination? Mark screws up his face even more. “In America, we threw off Kings many years ago, and we don’t want to go back to that. I think he thinks very highly of himself.” Mark’s wife is equally dismissive, just as Huckabee-or-nothing in her attitude: “Romney is smug and arrogant, and he’s flip-flopped on abortion. For me choosing a candidate is a pro-life issue, more than anything.”

On the way back to the car we say hi to some of the sign-wavers on the opposite side of the intersection, and get split into Good Cop/Bad Cop conversations: I am lucky to have buttonholed Scott, a wonderfully warm 40something from Kansas, who used to fly secret courier missions in the first Gulf War. We chat amiably about how socialised medicine (i.e. the NHS) works in practice, and the promise shown by the pre-Watergate Richard Nixon – Scott’s dad was a delegate for Tricky Dicky at the 1968 Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, Rachael and Tom have got stuck with the Bad Cop.

“That guy was really scary” they keep saying, shaking their heads as we return to the car. Touraj was eyeballing them, shouting “Huckabee!” at apparently random intervals in the middle of the conversation, telling them Democrats – and even undecideds – are godless, that “liberals kill humans” (an abortion reference, presumably, rather than co-ordinated ideological homicide?), and rounds off with a defence of George W. Bush.

“Bush doesn’t have the support of half the country. If you’re CEO of a business, and half of your staff don’t support you, your business will fail. Half of this country is stupid.”

Actually Bush’s most recent approval rating was 33%, meaning that by Touraj’s reckoning, 67% of his country is stupid, technically. But I wasn’t going to go back to the sparsely-populated, ill-lit intersection to tell him that.

DATELINE: San Diego, California

We’ve been on the road a lot in the last few days. We have traversed phenomenally barren terrain – but it has been both beautiful, and diverse. From pebble-strewn, cactus-speckled beige expanses, to ranging sand dunes, to mountainous rock-piles, the south west has been a geological wonderland, all laid out beneath cloudless blue skies. We’ve been tormented by dust-storms, tumbleweed – it’s quite aggressively mobile stuff in high winds – and maniacal crop-dusting planes flying within feet of the heads of the traffic, in the manner of North By Northwest. The ubiquitous US border police have left us well alone though – an advantage of being white and driving with New York license plates.

In between we have got to know some of the finest motel chains the US has to offer – and acquired the kind of local ignorance normally befitting Britain’s finest rock bands. Twice in the space of two nights I have sat down to write, and had to call out hesitantly, wearily, ‘where are we again?’ This scenario has led to Tom and I upending Gideon Bibles and phone directories, and scrambling around inspecting motel chain rubric and check-out instructions for clues. The answers we were looking for were Fort Stockton, Texas (pop. 7,846), and Willcox, Arizona (pop. 3,769). I shan’t be hurrying back to either.

The last two nights have seen us dashing headfirst into our motels to watch CNN’s respective Democratic and Republican debates; out of obligation, rather than enthusiasm, it must be said. These TV debates are like a political version of dressage, the equestrian sport where the horse just rides cautiously around an empty paddock: they are reductive, stultifyingly banal versions of the real thing, but they are also painfully nerve-wracking at the same time, because you know one tiny slip-up could ruin a competitor’s whole campaign.

On both occasions Tom, Rachael and I sat amidst our traveller’s debris on freshly made hotel beds, squirming, squinting, occasionally guffawing at the TV. For the Republican debate, this was because of the horrendously angst-ridden battle between John McCain and Mitt Romney for the upper hand in the GOP race (this wasn’t, of course, based on actual policy, but whether you prefer a veteran or a businessman, essentially). Each time one spoke, the other displayed the kind of smile normally reserved for axe murderers standing behind heroines in slasher movies. Meanwhile Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, the remaining two candidates in the Republican race, sat excluded at the end of the table, like small children at a dinner party. Huck was unhappy, and justifiably so, the poor creationist loon: “I didn’t come here to umpire a fight between these two – I’d like to swing a few myself. Could I maybe get some questions that all of us could answer?”

Last night’s Democratic debate – minus John Edwards, who dropped out if you missed that – was just as bad, but for the opposite reasons: someone at the DNC (the Dems’ party machine) obviously watched the Republicans ripping each other to shreds the previous night, had a brainwave, and knocked some Obama/Clinton skull together, telling them they had to make nice for the good of the party. Cue a grin-heavy liberal love-in, watched by everyone from Steven Spielberg to Ugly Betty to (I think) Josh from the West Wing.

With 22 states preparing to vote, The Tuesday of Destiny is looming large just the other side of the weekend, and the race couldn’t be more exciting right now. Thank god there are no more debates, and the news channels can get back to spending all their time speculating on Mary-Kate Olsen’s knowledge of Heath Ledger’s death, like they were doing this morning.

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 get-out-of-the-Union-free cards remain at Texas’s disposal to this day. I mention this just because there’s still a fiercely independent spirit to the Lone Star State. As we drive from Houston to Austin, and watch the typical headgear change from stetson to beanie, the only candidate lawn signs in either city are for local Sheriff or State representatives, rather than Presidential candidates (not including Ron Paul signs. EVERYWHERE has Ron Paul signs. We’ve seen Ron Paul signs fixed to trees in the middle of a Louisiana swamp for chrissakes). The point is that Washington feels like a very long way away – and most Texans want it to stay there.

Austin is an incredible city. Famous the world over for its music scene and progressive attitude, the main activity is, quasi-officially, just hanging out. You don’t have to do this with a rollie cigarette, a faded black band t-shirt, and sandals, but it is encouraged. Obviously this is somewhat of a departure from the stereotype of the macho, conservative state George W. Bush used to govern. Talking to our new friend Ryan in The Side Bar, I respond to his loathing for Bush by asking him why he chose to move to Texas from his native Chicago. Ryan laughs: “this ain’t Texas.”

Ryan would like to see Bush impeached. He recalls the attempts to impeach Bill Clinton, snorting into his beer, which has been self-spiked with tomato juice (”it stops you getting sun-burned in the summer”, he explains, completely seriously). “Bill Clinton can do whatever the hell he likes with a cigar, as far as I’m concerned” he says, citing budget-balancing and other economic successes.

Bush’s State Of The Union speech earlier that evening was better delivered than usual – he didn’t look like a lost child in a shopping mall for once, and managed to be less monotonous than the dreary Democratic response that followed it. Delivery aside, it was, of course, rich in hawkish doublethink:

“In Iraq, our enemies are fighting to secure safe-havens for terrorists.”

The only person who’s secured a safe-haven for terrorists in Iraq is the man who launched an illegal, unilateral, ad hoc invasion of it.

“Al-Qaeda is on the run in Iraq.”

And they’re running right towards you, strapped with explosives.

“We will continue to deliver justice to our enemies.”

No, you’ll just keep making more of them.

Ryan and our wonderful host Meghan, who have more tattoos between them than pretty much everyone I know, share with us liberal America’s sadly familiar talking point: where they’d most like to emigrate to – in the event that someone like Huckabee or Romney were elected, I presume. There are stories of friends travelling abroad and getting trouble because they’re American: “That’s what Bush has done to us, he’s made us an embarrassment, as a nation of people. I hear it’s safer to pretend you’re Canadian.”

So who are they voting for? Ryan’s happy with Obama or Clinton, either change will do, and Meghan, sighing, says Obama. She supposes. “But I don’t even know if I’m eligible to vote in the Democratic primary. That’s really awful, right? I feel really bad that you guys are more into this election than so many Americans are.”

I explain that, on the contrary, that’s what we expected; that disaffection seems likely, and justifiable in many ways.

“I think I’m registered as a Green or an Independent or something. I suppose basically the problem is that none of the candidates are far left enough for me, they’re just too close to the Republicans. And I just don’t really trust any of them.”