This is just a little warning for the pundits, the pollsters, and I guess for the Clinton campaign, too. I dropped by the Obama Headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania today to drop off some voter registrations (the deadline to register is tomorrow). And I discovered that they had a box of new registrations that had been collected by volunteers in Chester County on Saturday. The box contained approximately 1,500 new registrations. These were all collected yesterday alone.
It is just staggering. I have no idea how the effort is going in other counties, but I don’t think Chester Co. is all that unusual. And those registrations were vetted, meaning there is reason to believe that every one of them belongs to a person that is at least leaning towards Obama.
The Clinton and McCain campaigns are most fortunate that tomorrow is the last day of registration. If we had another month to increase turnout, imagine what we could do.
We are really busy in the West Philly office with boxes full of registrations; our office is up as of a few days ago. There seems to be an endless supply of people to register in this area, which is predominately black and working poor. We hit every church we could today with hundreds of volunteers: white, black, brown. It’s just amazing. The enthusiasm around here is all Obama; I have not seen one Hillary sign or supporter.
Obama is going to overwhelmingly sweep Philadelphia.
From far away, I wonder if there is anything I can do to help? I got another really nice call from a donation volunteer, and of course, offered a bit…what I could offer.
I’m uncomfortable with random phone calls, but do it when Move On controls the number list.
LTE’s I’ve done. Complaints to MSM, every day.
Any other ideas?
We’re supposed to get started tomorrow here in KY – a friend of mine from Congressman Yarmuth’s office is heading up the effort. I hope y’all in PA can make our work here in KY irrelevant – end this thing already.
something is happening here. You know it when Christopher Caldwell, senior editor of The Weekly Standard, cites Obama’s bravery – he writes this in his Financial Times, piece:
Obama breaks the secret code
it’s worth registering at the FT for a read of this historic change in mindset by a conservative on race.
I spent all day today doing data entry so we can all every Obama delegate and alternate for the county conventions that happen next Satuurday in Texas. We are fired up and we are going to help elect Obama. We have lots of people in Texas making calls into PA to help turn out the vote for the primary there as well.
After those conventions will the final delegate totals be released? Or is there another step?
LOL we still have the state convention in June before the final delegate count is released.
That’s really great. And each of those new Dem voters that votes for Obama will be a little bit more inclined to vote for our downticket candidate in the fall if he’s on the ballot.
there’s something else:
via Ben Smith: Obama closing in on 2 million donors so far this year
The comments on this entry are interesting. Many are HRC defectors over the Bosnia lie.
I’m not surprised – and think the figure to be way over the 2 million mark; an embarrassing figure that would likely deter more to donate.
That’s not true, unfortunately. It is a technical glitch at the Obama website. He added an update to that post later to reflect the error.
thanks RandyH,
the link I provided to Ben Smith notes the corrected update
I don’t have any insider information, but I have a hunch that former President Jimmy Carter is going to be the next superdelegate to come out for Obama. He is one of the elders of the Party, and at his age it might be fun and rewarding to make himself politically relevant by helping to bring closure to the primary process.
Ya heard here first….
Here in Philly some of our team leaders collected around 1,000 on Saturday…. There are 19 teams in Philly.
That’s amazing, Luam.
I was surprised to hear from my mom that of the women in her Philly ‘burbs quilting group (which demographically one would suspect would be Hillary’s “base”), all the Dems are for Obama…and apparently my sister-in-law, who grew up in the “T”, is too.
I don’t want to be getting too hopeful, but it is encouraging.
LUam, I’ve emailed you twice about volunteering,you ever gonna get back tome?
There’s a reason that Obama’s poll numbers go up sharply after his “machine” hits the ground of a primary state.
I wasn’t involved here in SC, since I was supporting Edwards at the time. But, afterwards, I started noticing the same phenomenon in virtually every state. The only way the Clintons could blunt his momentum was turn on the slime machine. If Carville had any hair then he’d be ripping it out.
Shortly after the SC primary the Wall St. Journal ran an analysis of Obama’s SC tactics. It was an eye-opener. Clinton outbid Obama for the African-American political elite. Yet, Obama’s grassroots organizing cut the A-A power structure off at the knees. The impact is hard to overstate in a state where A-A’s should have overwhelming political power by sheer numbers.
If Obama can preserve his organizations in the primary states then general election should be really interesting.
And the only times he has lost was in big states were there was not enough time to reach a winning number of people. For once, time is on our side. I have long thought PA was the perfect place for Obama to pull off the victory that denies Clinton her “sure thing.” And that will be the fastest way to end the madness.
Let me let you in on a poorly-kept secret – the “African-American political elite” have about as much sway over the voting of African Americans as the Windsors hold sway over the House of Commons. There’s a bunch of them who are good at getting themselves elected (and paid) but nobody pays any heed to them, with a few notable exceptions (Conyers, Clyburn, Cummings, et al.), but even those have their limits – as illustrated by Georgia ignoring John Lewis’ endorsement of Hillary and John Conyers’ 1993 mayoral run.
It’s a new, postmodern day – there are no more authoritative speakers, only inspirational or boring speakers, and there’s no question who wins in that context.
The WSJ cited, as an example, an A-A state senator named Darell Jackson. Jackson wears several additional hats: pastor of a mega-A-A church in the capitol city plus the owner of a political PR firm. The Clintons outbid Edwards (who retained Jackson’s PR firm in his 2004 primary victory) and Obama.
You may be correct about the “post-modern” leadership in other states but I sense that operators like Jackson offer as much of a “machine” as there exists in the United States.
I’m not privy to A-A community politics. As an interested observer (but marginalized as a Dem, liberal and White), I had long pondered whether there’s sort of a symbiotic relationship between the political ineffectiveness of the current A-A leadership and the White power structure.
My hope is that an Obama nomination and general election victory could change the state politics by energizing the grassroots.
OMG. I just watched this short Obama townhall clip. Must-see. A questioner asks what he’s gonna do about gas prices. He gives a great and detailed answer about energy policy and even quotes the price of gas accurately, etc. Then he askes the questioner what kind of car he drives. Whoa. Talk about telling you NOT what you want to hear, but what you need to hear… Just watch.