From the Wall Street Journal:
Several commitments over the weekend gave Sen. Obama 276 superdelegates, by his campaign's count. For the first time, that put him in the lead over Sen. Clinton among the governors, lawmakers and party officers who are free to vote for the nomination of anyone they choose at the Democratic convention in late August. Sen. Clinton has 274.5 superdelegates, her campaign says. Delegates from U.S. territories have half-votes. Sen. Obama is within 155 of the total 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination. Fewer than 500 of them remain up for grabs. That includes about 250 uncommitted superdelegates and 217 pledged delegates yet to be won in the final six primaries through June 3, starting Tuesday with West Virginia. ... Pledged delegates account for about 80% of the convention votes. Because the two Democratic rivals have split pledged delegates so closely, neither can get a nominating majority with the few of them remaining, so the superdelegates will effectively decide the nominee. "They're not a bunch of guys who smoke cigars in a back room and slap each other on the back," Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said in a recent interview. "Almost all of them are elected by the same people who elected these other delegates," he said, referring to Democratic voters. Before voting began in January, Sen. Clinton had a big lead thanks to superdelegates -- one adviser put it at about 120 -- helped by her early courtship of those from the Democratic National Committee and the state parties who were familiar with her and her husband, the former president. But as Sen. Obama split the January contests with her and then won a string of victories in February, dozens of uncommitted superdelegates moved in his direction. Sen. ... Since Tuesday, the Obama campaign has announced 20 endorsements, including five from superdelegates who previously endorsed Sen. Clinton -- among them, former senator and 1972 presidential nominee George McGovern. ... The recent movement toward Sen. Obama marks the third and final wave of superdelegates, says Democratic consultant Tad Devine, who was an architect of party rules that created superdelegates in the 1980s to ensure a voice for party leaders in picking a standard bearer. "Hillary won the first wave, which occurred before people started voting," Mr. Devine said. Sen. Obama won the second, from the crush of contests on "Super Tuesday" Feb. 5 up until May. The third wave, he added, "is the decisive wave," and Sen. Obama "is already well on his way to winning."
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stepped up their criticism of John McCain and aimed fewer potshots at each other amid signs the nomination fight is winding down and the Democratic Party is coalescing around Sen. Obama. Before taking time off the campaign trail Sunday, Sen. Obama zeroed in on the Republican presidential candidate's "gas-tax holiday," ridiculing the proposal as saving motorists "a quarter and a nickel a day" through the summer. ... The shift comes amid signs Sen. Obama has pulled far enough ahead in the race that Sen. Clinton can't catch him. The count of superdelegates -- the party insiders and elected officials who will determine this year's nomination -- has been trending his way, and by Sunday, the campaigns' counts had 276 superdelegates in his camp and 274.5 for Sen. Clinton. ... Sen. Clinton also seemed to pull back her direct criticisms of Sen. Obama, invoking his name only in passing at a Manhattan fund-raiser Saturday. Instead, she sounded themes of party unity. "What I hear and what I see is all about how we're going to finish this nominating contest -- which we will do," she told her supporters. "Then we will have a nominee and we will have a unified Democratic Party and we will stand together and we will defeat John McCain in November and go on to the White House."
... Barack Obama took the lead in the party's superdelegates and began taking steps that foreshadow the direction an Obama-John McCain race is likely to take. Over the weekend, Sen. Obama overtook Sen. Clinton in the superdelegate tally, with his campaign counting 276 superdelegate supporters, while the Clinton campaign claims the support of 274.5, The Wall Street Journal notes. (Delegates from U.S. territories have half-votes.) Crossing that threshold may help bolster his standing as the Democratic Party's likely nominee. Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, former Sen. John Edwards, who hasn't endorsed either candidate, pointed out that the odds are stacked against Sen. Clinton. "The problem is, I think, you can no longer make a compelling case for the math." ... Sen. Obama is aiming to ramp-up voter-registration efforts and commit more campaign resources to states he lost in the primaries, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which he hopes to win in November, the Times notes. And while white, blue-collar voters that populate these states have been the focus of recent Democratic contests and will likely continue to be wooed by both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain, Hispanic voters could be in the spotlight also. Their votes could be the tipping point in pivotal states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico ...
From WHAS 11:
Senator Barack Obama, who now has the support of Kentucky's lieutenant governor Daniel Mongiardo, is headed back to the bluegrass. He'll hold a rally in Louisville later tonight. Supporters were making signs for tonight's rally at the Obama Louisville campaign office. Congressman John Yarmuth showed up to help the supporters. He is a superdelegate and Obama supporter. Preps were also underway yesterday at the Kentucky International Convention center where tonight's rally will be held. The rally is free and open to the public. Doors open at five tonight, with the program beginning at seven. ... Kentucky's primary is set for next Tuesday.
From the Great Falls Tribune:
It may be too soon to tell just how high voter registration will be, but early indications are pointing to a big turnout for Montana's last-in-the-nation presidential primary election on June 3. Elections officials from across the state are reporting above-average voter registration and increased requests for absentee ballots, a sign that the down-to-the-wire Democratic nominating contest between Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has energized Montana voters. In Cascade County, 721 people registered to vote in the last month. That's more than twice the number of people who registered during the same period in 2006. In 2004, the last presidential primary year, 529 people registered to vote in the same time period. ... In Missoula County, political groups, college students and volunteers for Obama's campaign have worked nearly around the clock to register voters. "We've gotten a lot more registration cards and absentee ballot requests than what we would normally get," said Missoula County Elections Office Supervisor Debbie Merseal. In Missoula, where Obama held an April 5 rally that drew more than 8,000 supporters to the University of Montana's Adams Center, volunteers worked the long lines of people waiting to see the candidate, registering them to vote and signing them up to receive absentee ballots. Merseal estimates that of the 1,108 voter registration cards the office processed between April 1 and May 5, 50 to 60 percent were turned in on cards sponsored by the Obama campaign. ... Obama's Montana team leaders landed in the state shortly before the April 5 Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner in Butte, and the campaign officially opened five field offices around the state April 12. Since then, the campaign has added three more field office, with the latest one opening in Butte on Saturday. Campaign spokesman Matt Chandler said that even before campaign field workers began organizing volunteers, Obama's supporters were out in droves registering voters on their own. "It was an aggressive campaign to sign up as many new voters as we can and bring them into the process," Chandler said. "We had widespread enthusiasm around the state. I'd say there were hundreds of volunteers statewide walking precincts and knocking on doors."
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Original info by Michelle B, which I now put with LINKS that OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW (simply CLOSE NEW WINDOW when done)
Original info by Matthew, which I now put with LINKS that OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW (simply CLOSE NEW WINDOW when done)
Original info by Matthew, which I now put withLINKS that OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW (simply CLOSE NEW WINDOW when done)
LINKS in this post WILL OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW(simply CLOSE NEW WINDOW when done)
NO to "distractions" NO to "defeatist" NO to "racial slice & dice" NO to "negatives" NO to MEDIA DECEPT IONS. BE POSITIVE, BE HOPEFUL, PRAY and WORK HARD for OBAMA
