Ethan Berkowitz(D-AK) will Barack His Caucus

The last Democrat to be elected to Congress from Alaska was Mike Gravel.

However, I believe that will change this November, when former State House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz beats corrupt Rep. Don Young (then again, pretty much all Alaska Republicans are corrupt.

Anyway, he says he'll be caucusing for Barack, and as the only candidate organizing in the state, Barack should do well there.

California Obama Truth Squad in Gear

John Kerry said in an e-mail urging Obama supporters to get the word out (or, as a supporter said at his rally on the 20th in Columbia, SC "Educate don't hate!") regarding the scurrilous madrassa Muslim/racist Christian e-mails that have been making their way around the tubes that he was very upset at the fact that "Swift Boating" had come to mean what it had, because he was proud to have served on the Swift Boats.

He forgot that they also denigrated the word truth, so that "Truth Squad" makes one a little uncomfortable.

It's unfortunate that the Clintons have made it necessary

Arizona Republic Endorses Obama

I think, anyway. It's not clear that it's an official endorsements, but it reads like one and there's no author name

Recap of Obama Newspaper Endorsements

Note: This primary endorsement post comes up #3 on Google for Obama newspaper endorsements, so I am now linking to a newer post on the subject here, that will be continuously updated.

This may not be complete (and I'm intentionally leaving out college and special-interest papers), but it's as good as I can do:
Alabama
Tuscaloosa News
California
Modesto Bee
Sacramento Bee'
San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Francisco Chronicle
Santa Barbara Independent
Florida
Bradenton Herald
Gainseville Sun
Palm Beach Post
Pensacola News Journal
St. Petersbug Times
Tampa Tribune
Georgia
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Illinois
Chicago Tribune
Iowa
Ottumwa Courier
Sioux City Journal
Woodbine Twiner
Maine
Maine Sunday-Telegram/Portland Press Herald
Massachusetts
Boston Globe
Metrowest Daily News
The Republican
Missouri
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Nevada
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Reno Gazette-Journal
New Hampshire
Nashua Telegraph
Portsmouth Herald
New Jersey
Times of Trenton
New York
New York Observer
Oklahoma
Muskogee Phoenix
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia Inquirer
South Carolina
Greenville News
Rock Hill Herald
The State
Texas
Dallas Morning News

Trenton Times Endorses Barack Obama

Not a huge paper, but it's certainly read by some people in central and southern Jersey.

I'd still much prefer a Lautenberg and/or Holt endorsement (or, if it's an NJ newspaper, the Star-Ledger

But as endorsements go, it's a pretty good one.

Hillary Clinton is more than qualified to run the country. She's smart, experienced, eminently able -- and she's promised to roll up her sleeves and begin work on her first day in office. Our government, though is so huge, so entrenched, such a mighty force of inertia, it may be impossible, despite her best efforts, for her to actually push it in a different direction.

That's the advantage of Obama and the ignition of optimism he's brought about. Appealing to our best and brightest instincts, he's made us be lieve a better future is possible.

CNN has already called it for Barack!!!!!!

W007!!!!! I'd better get back to work soon, because it looks like I'm going to Jersey next Thursday night.

They called it with 0% reporting, so it's gotta be a pretty good margin in the exit polls.

Obama wins Late Deciders in SC per exit poll

If this is accurate, it seems like pretty good news.

Obama wins late deciders

More voters who made their decision anytime in the past month – including those who did not pick a candidate until Election Day — voted for Obama than the combined total of those who went for Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

I've made myself a table listing the percentage of each county's population by race, with the 2004 Bush-Kerry vote, to try to get an idea of the likely racial demographics of each county's voters (this being the area with the biggest differences in the polls)

Feeling Like Clinton Will Win

I've been having a terrible, terrible feeling that Senator Clinton will win South Carolina tonight.

Part of the early South Carolina exit poll makes me even more nervous.

After the contentious Democratic debate Monday night, three in four Obama voters said Clinton had attacked Obama unfairly and slightly fewer than half accused their own candidate of attacking Clinton unfairly. Two-thirds of Clinton voters said Obama attacked her unfairly and nearly as many said she attacked him unfairly. Edwards voters were more likely than either of the other candidates' supporters to say both Clinton and Obama attacked each other unfairly.

I may be overanalyzing or even analyzing entirely incorrectly, but I'm feeling like the fact that as many as 1/3 of Clinton voters felt that she was attacking Obama unfairly but he wasn't attacking her unfairly (then again, it could be 0) means people dislike her but are voting for her anyway.

So very nervous ....

Philadelphia Inquirer Endorses Barack Obama

Inquirer's Endorsement


Although Pennsylvania doesn't vote until late April, when the nomination is fairly likely to have been decided, I believe the paper gets some readers in South Jersey and Delaware, which both vote on February 5th.

The key part of their endorsement:

Obama inspires people to action. And while inspiration alone isn't enough to get a job done, it's a necessary ingredient to begin the hard work.

Obama's appeal to Americans to have the audacity to hope, even in the face of tragedies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, has fallen on fertile ground. Americans want desperately to believe they can overcome any difficulty - given the right leadership.

Of course, Obama needs to win South Carolina today, or it's over (a substantial margin of victory may be necessary, but victory definitely is), and I'm very nervous, having lost all trust in polls after New Hampshire.

Bill Clinton Echoes Barack Obama

Not a surprise, since after all, Obama's comments about Reagan were merely toned-down, less praiseworthy versions of Bill's comments about the man while he was running for president

Bill now claims that "We’ll unite this country by doing things together, that’s what’ll happen,"

This is despite Senator Clinton's divisiveness and their criticism of Obama's promise to do the same as naive.

Moreover, he's echoing Senator Obama on the job of the president.

Obama said this, and Hillary criticized him:

But I'm not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that's not my job. My job is to set a vision of 'here's where the bureaucracy needs to go.'"

Yet Bill agrees

The President is not called the Chief Executive Officer of America for nothing. You don’t run the bureaucracy but you are responsible for seeing that your ideas turn into positive changes in other people’s lives.

Perhaps he should support the candidate he seems to agree with, rather than the one he doesn't.

Clinton Campaign Tactics Costs Her Support

Specifically the campaign's behavior with the abortion mailer they sent out in New Hampshire. See this video by former Chicago NOW president Lorna Brett Howard:

Obama Offices by February 5th State

True 50-state strategy in action here.

State headquarters in bold.
Alabama(4)-Birmingham Birmingham (Central ), Tuscaloosa (Western Black Belt), Montgomery (Eastern black belt), Huntsville (Northern) [Mobile may be left out :(]
Alaska(1)-Anchorage
Arizona(2)-Phoenix, Tucson
Arkansas(1)-Little Rock
California(8)-Palo Alto (San Francisco and area South of it), Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Santa Ana (Orange County), San Bernardino, Sacramento, San Diego

Colorado(7)-Denver, Denver Volunteers, Boulder (western suburbs of Denver), Pueblo (south and rural), Englewood (south denver suburbs), Fort Collins (North Colorado), Colorado Springs (Jesus country)
Connectiut-No office :(
Delaware(1)-Wilmington
Georgia(5)-Atlanta, Columbus, Savannah, Albany, Macon
Idaho(4)-Boise, Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Coeur D'Alene
Illinois(?)-National Headquarters, Big Volunteer Headquarters, Probably Piggybacking off of local IL politician offices
Kansas(1)-Lawrence
Massachusetts(1)-Somerville (may be piggybacking off of Deval Patrick's org)
Minnesota(7)-St. Paul, Minneapolis, Southeast, Northeast, Southwest, Central, North Central
Missouri(2)-St. Louis, Kansas City
New Jersey(3)-West Orange (North Jersey), Edison (Central Jersey), Camden (South Jersey)
New Mexico(1)-Albuquerque
New York(6)-Manhattan, Brooklyn, Harlem, Albany/Northeast New York, Poughkeepsie (NYC suburbs), Buffalo
North Dakota(3)-Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck
Oklahoma(1)-Oklahoma City
Tennessee(2)-Nashville, Memphis
Utah(1)-Salt Lake City

Probably about 65 offices in February 5th states.

Coburn Endorses John McCain

Not a big surprise, given their shared distaste for earmarks.

Surprising how endorsements come in after he lost Michigan, like how they came to Obama after he lost New Hampshire.

Granted, McCain is still in very good shape in the race, as is Obama.

Michigan Dem Exit Polls: African-Americans 70% Uncommitted

The exit polls are pretty interesting in Michigan.

If everyone had been on the ballot, the exit polls say it would have been Clinton 45, Obama 37, Edwards 12, but 41% of Edwards supporters and 17% of Obama supporters chose either Clinton or Kucinich.

Most things were pretty unsurprising. Uncommitted did better among the young, the urban, those with more education, and those making at least $50,000 a year.

But the African-American vote going 70% for uncommitted compared to 26% for Clinton was very surprising.

I'm not sure what the shift away from Clinton (and it is away from Clinton in this case since Obama wasn't on the ballot) was due to.

I have two theories:

1. African-Americans have solid, hardcore support for Obama to such a large extent that they'd prefer a proxy vote for him to a vote for Clinton
2. The Clinton campaign's tactics and remarks have been disastrous for her among African-Americans.


What are your thoughts?

Campaigning In New Hampshire-Retrospective

• The people of New Hampshire suffer severe mental trauma as a result of their status as first-in-the-nation primary I personally called at least two people who were literally driven insane by the massive number of political phone calls, both robocalls and calls from real people. Also, one neighborhood had a "Beware of crazy 79 year old man" warning given to canvassers, because he invited canvassers into his house, then realized they weren't supposed to be canvassing the "private" development and started going ballistic, even getting physical (this happened multiple times before we blacked him out and put out the warning)


• People in New Hampshire may well deserve their status as first-in-the-nation The generosity and work done by in-state supporters in terms of providing food and housing to out-of-state people was phenomenal. Moreover, they are astonishingly into the process. We had 1000 people show up at 8:45 a.m. on a Friday morning to see Barack (after his Iowa victory, but still phenomenal). The voters are extremely indecisive but they are into the process (this was probably the major factor in the polls being wrong; so many people told us they'd be making up their minds in the booths and those seem to have gone for Hillary).


• The level of wonkishness was surprisingly high. We had people asking his position on the line-item veto, wind power, and coal. However, one lady's query/anger was on about the most obscure thing possible. It was a bill he co-sponsored with Senator Orrin Hatch(R-UT) exempting contributions to religious institutions from the calculations done by the courts on those being means-tested after filing for bankruptcy. This lady was upset because she felt the creditors deserved to be paid back. My arguments over how the new bankruptcy laws are unfair didn't go anywhere, but when I noted that it passed unanimously by voice vote, I made some headway.