Dan Balz's Take
Obama working the crowd in New Hampshire on Labor Day. (Getty).
Barack Obama sent out an e-mail to supporters on Tuesday announcing plans for a big rally in New York's Washington Square Park on Sept. 27. The invitation was evidence of a campaign planning for a potentially extended battle against Hillary Clinton.
The idea of a protracted contest runs contrary to widespread assumptions about how the 2008 Democratic race may play out. But some analysts, who have studied the new calendar, the rules for allocating convention delegates and the financial resources of the leading candidates, believe that a lengthy contest extending into the megaprimary day of Feb. 5 and beyond may be just as likely.
Come Intern for the Next President of the United States
By the way, interning in the field program is the single best way to get on the inside track to get a paid position on the campaign. If you have any questions or are interested, please send an email to krish@barackobama.com
We thank you so much and wish you all the best.
-Krishnan Subrahmanian
By Frank D. Russo
At the 1965 World's Fair, I was given a button at a General Electric exhibit that reads "I have seen the future, and it works." Yesterday, on a Sunday, I got a glimpse of the future of the Democratic party in California, and I can report to you that the change in our state's primary date, even before it is signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, is already working.
On just two days notice, close to 500 volunteers showed up in the Bay Area--not for a rally by Barack Obama--but to plan his upcoming appearance on March 17 in Oakland. Two separate meetings were held by organizers of the Obama campaign. The picture above is from the Oakland meeting.
There was enthusiasm in the room as veterans of past Democratic campaigns met many who were new to electoral politics.
As the meeting was about to begin, I spoke with Marie Houssni, who lives in the San Jose area and is a high school language teacher. She described herself as "a United Methodist married to a Moroccan Muslim." She is active with the San Jose Barack Obama Meetup Group and gushed about the start of its work. "The people who came to our meetup the other night were a couple of evangelicals, which was interesting, a couple of young college students, a couple of teachers, and someone from my neighborhood who is a Vietnamese immigrant," she said.
I asked about the purpose of the group and she said it was "to start to publicize for Barack Obama, to post flyers and go to flea markets and farmer's markets, and to get people registered and to get his name out there."
When asked if it wasn't early, she said "No. We need to start early. Last time, when it was the John Edwards campaign, I didn't get started until 3 months before the primary and that was too late. There's a large group of people that are very uninformed, because they are plugged into their I-pods and MTV. You know, we're busy. I'm a working mother. People have two and three jobs. They're leery of politics. They've been misled in the past, so the more you can get people on board that they are the citizenry. Its up to them to change things."
She described Edwards as "a valuable person, he's done a lot for people," but is supporting Obama because of what she saw as his stronger opposition to the War in Iraq.
When I told her that many pundits and others were predicting a heavy media campaign and asked her what she thought of that, she said: "I can tell you what I am going to be doing. I'll be working at the De Anza Flea market once a week, to regisater voters, sell bumper strips, and badges. We'll also be going to West Valley College once every two weeks to register new voters. Our big campaign is to get the younger kids, the younger people on board."
With that the meeting began, and with it part of the future as well.
Dear Friends and Fellow Group Members,
My advance announcement on March 5th was...
Great news! Senator Barack Obama will appear at a public rally in Oakland on Saturday, March 17 in the afternoon (full details will be available soon). Please come to this event and experience first-hand the excitement Barack Obama is generating all across the country!
I have had some questions come up so here's a FAQ section....
-- The Obma site does not post appearances this far in advance on their site. (As of the 6th, they only listed to the 10th)
-- The $1,000/$2,300 per plate fundraiser that night is at the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
-- Details are still coming in, but there's no info yet on specific location.
-- Sorry about any duplicate emails you received - you are in more then one group and I wanted people to pass out the info I had ASAP. To avoid duplication as much as possible, when I get more details on this event I will only send it to my "friends" list and to persons whose emails addresses were part of group discussions threads I have received.
-UPDATE 1- I do not know if this will guarantee a ticket to the public rally, but it is the only RSVP option I'm aware of at this time. Link
-- UPDATE 2- Volunteer announcements went out today (check your email) and I signed up right away! I'm so excited!
Let me quote the ticker on Fox News Channel for a moment. "Looking back... genealogical researcher says '08 Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il) has white ancestors who owned slaves (FOX) Genealogical experts who reviewed Obama family tree did not vouch for Reitweisner's [person making claim] findings"
To begin with it is good to know Fox News holds the same standard to news as the Bush administration does to pre-war intelligence. Doesn't matter if it is already refuted, state it as fact anyway. To run a headline then have the next headline say that the previous headline was false is absolutely amazing. Not unexpected from those high caliber news men at Fox, living up to the John Gibson standard but, still amazing.
From there let me ask, even if a member of his family did own slaves 150 years ago what does it matter? I have a feeling if you went through most of the white southern Republican's background you'd find at least one slave owner. Heck, Strom Thurman would have reconstituted slavery in the 1950's if he had his way. Doesn't South Carolina still fly the Confederate Flag over its capital?
This is an awful smear campaign and I really can't believe how badly Fox News and the Republican party want to face off against Hillary Clinton rather than Obama. That is the only possible explanation for what they run. They always runs anti-Obama material (everybody remembers the Madrases story a couple of weeks ago) to make sure Hillary wins the nomination. They have had their machine running for the past 2 years, working on digging up Hillary dirt and if Barack Obama wins I really don't think the Fox Propaganda Channel will be adequately prepared to run smear campaigns. All those 527's have spent their money building up an arsenal to shoot down Hillary, if Obama succeeds and flys right under the radar, they got nothing.
However, with Iraq failing and our country growing tired of Bush and his whole party, while I would prefer Obama, Hillary will still wipe the floor with the Republican nominee.
