I'm sitting here a few minutes after nine, waiting for the big event of the evening, Barack Obama's keynote address. It's hard to overestimate how much expectation looms around this guy. The Democratic party yearns for this man's political future like Dick Cheney lusts after the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea.

Obama probably would have won the Illinois Senate seat in November by a solid margin regardless. Now it's not clear that it'll even be a contest after his opponent's candidacy collapsed amid his would-be party constituents close-mindedness about his desire to see his movie star wife have sex with other men in Paris sex clubs. So he was sort of a martyr to Babbitry, you might say.

In any case, he'll be the only black man in the Senate; and he'll have a relatively safe seat, as senate seats go. He'll be an instant star of his party. And all the folks who have antennae for political magic are all atwitter over him. I've been watching him give interviews and work the crowd and the tell-tale grace and poise isn't hard to see.