Working for the Working - Class Vote

These are but two excellent paragraphs from a much larger piece to be published in the New York Times this weekend. Enjoy this snippet if that is all the time you have, but the full article is well worth your time if you are of a mind to read it:

WHEN LYNDON JOHNSON SIGNED the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he famously predicted that his party had just signed away the South for a generation to come. In truth, the outcome was more profound than Johnson could have imagined. The culture war, whose Bunker Hill was the campus quad of the 1960s, soon spread to just about every region of the country, where rural and working-class white voters, already anxious over economic change, recoiled at the vehement strain of antimilitary, antiestablishment liberalism that took hold of the Democratic Party in the era after Selma and Saigon. The effect, especially on the presidential level, was immediate and drastic. In the 32 years before Johnson made his pronouncement, Democrats controlled the White House for all but 8 of them, and only twice — in 1948 and 1960 — had the Democrat won by what could be considered a narrow margin. In the four decades since, only two Democrats have managed to get elected, and only one has claimed a majority of the popular vote. (This was Jimmy Carter, who eked out exactly 50.1 percent without winning a single state west of Texas.) By the turn of the century, almost completely driven from the South and West, Democratic presidential candidates had taken to focusing all their efforts on an ever-shrinking pool of coastal and industrial states.

Obama, though, has talked from the beginning about running a “50-state” campaign, and he has spent considerable time and money in more culturally conservative parts of the country where Democrats rarely, if ever, venture, from Elko and Appalachia to Billings, Mont., and Las Cruces, N.M. To a large extent, this reflects Obama’s personal conviction about modern politics, which he first laid out in his 2004 convention speech when he talked about worshiping “an awesome God in the blue states” and having “gay friends in the red states.” He told me, when we talked, that Washington’s us-versus-them divisions had made it impossible for any president to find solutions to a series of generational challenges, from Iraq to global climate change. “If voters are similarly polarized and if they’re seeing two different realities, a Sean Hannity reality and a Keith Olbermann reality, then we’re not going to be able to get done the work we need to get done,” Obama said.

Liberal Bloggers Accuse Obama of Trying to Win Election

A guest column by Andy Borowitz (In other words, shamelessly stolen) :

The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.

Suspicions about Sen. Obama's true motives have been building over the past few weeks, but not until today have the bloggers called him out for betraying the Democratic Party's losing tradition.

"Barack Obama seems to be making a very calculated attempt to win over 270 electoral votes," wrote liberal blogger Carol Foyler at LibDemWatch.com, a blog read by a half-dozen other liberal bloggers. "He must be stopped."

But those comments were not nearly as strident as those of Tracy Klugian, whose blog LoseOn.org has backed unsuccessful Democratic candidates since 2000.

"Increasingly, Barack Obama's message is becoming more accessible, appealing, and yes, potentially successful," he wrote. "Any Democrat who voted for Dukakis, Mondale or Kerry should regard this as a betrayal."

Liberal bloggers said that they would be watching Sen. Obama's vice-presidential selection process "very closely" for signs that he is plotting to win the election.

"Barack Obama still has a chance to pick someone disastrous as a sign that he wants to lose this thing," Ms. Foyler wrote. "If not, he should brace himself for some really mean blog posts."

Seriously, I've already lost a good blogger friend or two over Obama's general election strategy. Cut the guy some slack for running a winning campaign. . .you have to pick your fights.

Obama's "Shock and Awe"

According to Evan Tracey, CNN's consultant on political television advertising, Barack Obama's decision to forgo public financing for his presidential campaign provides him with the tools needed to implement a "Shock and Awe" television ad strategy designed to paralyze John McCain's campaign.

The better-funded Obama is likely to force McCain to spend money on TV ads in Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina, said Tracey. At this point in the campaign, these are states that CNN projects McCain has an edge over the Illinois Democrat, but by no means are these states safely in the Arizona Republican's column.

Obama is expected to raise three or four times the $85 million he would have received from the public financing system, providing him with a huge financial advantage over McCain, who has opted to take the public funds. Click the screen below to watch Tracey discuss Obama's advantage:

Obama Opts Out of Public Financing

In this video message to supporters, Barack Obama announced today that he is opting out of the public financing system, forgoing "more than $80 million in public funds" for the more bountiful loot that could await him later and allow him greater reach with the 50 state strategy. Obama becomes the first modern presidential candidate to run a race solely on the back of private funds.

The Color Purple

Barack Obama continues to run the table via Howard Dean's 50 state strategy:

Barack Obama’s general election plan calls for broadening the electoral map by challenging Senator John McCain in typically Republican states — from North Carolina to Missouri to Montana — as Mr. Obama seeks to take advantage of voter turnout operations built in nearly 50 states in the long Democratic nomination battle, aides said.

On Monday, Mr. Obama will travel to North Carolina — a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 32 years — to start a two-week tour of speeches, town hall forums and other appearances intended to highlight differences with Mr. McCain on the economy. From there, he heads to Missouri, which last voted for a Democrat in 1996. His first campaign swing after securing the Democratic presidential nomination last week was to Virginia, which last voted Democratic in 1964.

This is going to be one of the most interesting presidential elections in recent history. Hang on and enjoy the ride!

The Realized Dream of Howard Dean

2008 finds the true progressive members of the Democratic Party finally in the driver's seat. This is the culmination of a strategy envisioned by Howard Dean; a strategy that was scoffed at and laughed off by the DLC crowd; a strategy that, most importantly, was employed by the insightful Barack Obama to the dismay of "the chosen one". The wheels came off of the Clinton bus because Barack started on the ground in ALL FIFTY STATES, per Dean's idea, and he had offices in each state by LAST SUMMER.

The once formidable Clinton machine, filled with people such as the longtime Clinton aide and Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who said of Howard Dean's plan "What he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose", was felled by Team Dean. Unbeknownst to Begala was that there were votes in Dem dere noses! People in states that had never even seen campaign offices opened, let alone DEMOCRATIC ONES, became politically involved and excited for the first time in their lives. And they voted. For the candidate who empowered them. Barack Obama.

Barack thanked Mr.Dean today by symbolically endorsing his efforts, and declaring that Dean would remain party chairman heading into the general election. He likely would have been ousted by a Clinton nomination. That would have resulted in the loss of so much that we've already gained and are still wresting away from the conservatives. Down ticket candidates in many states will undoubtedly win their races as a direct result of every state being put into play. The opposition will be forced to compete and, more importantly, spend resources in states that they've taken for granted for far too long.

The grass roots progressive machine is rolling across our great land. . .what a wonderful time to be a progressive Democrat!

One Million Donors . . .One Million Volunteers

Yesterday marked the first day of what the Obama campaign is calling its "Vote For Change" project. From barackobama.com:

On May 10th, Barack Obama is launching Vote for Change, an unprecedented 50-state voter registration and mobilization drive. More than 100 events will be held across the country that day. Obama volunteers will register new voters as the start of a six-month voter registration drive.

Marc Ambinder has more on just what this project entails and its potential impact:

The Vote For Change program will lay the foundation for Obama's general election get-out-the-vote efforts. Obama aides won't say much more, but I gather that the campaign is constructing an incredibly elaborate online interface to allow its more than a million donors and volunteers to directly persuade their neighbors through a variety of media. Names gathered from the voter registration effort will be merged with names gathered through Obama's primary efforts and the names off of the Democratic Party's integrated voter file as well as lists purchased from outside vendors.

On election day, Obama might have more than a million individuals volunteering on his behalf. That should scare the beejeesus out of the McCain campaign and the RNC.

Dean's 50-state strategy proven by Obama

"The Obama campaign is what all of us hoped Dean for President would become"

An excellent read from Ari Berman of The Nation points out what the Clintons would like to summarily dismiss: Banking your hopes on a few key swing states and several large donors every four years is no way to win elections. Targeting every state and building from the ground up IS. We never got to view the results of Dean's efforts in 2004, but Barack Obama has followed his playbook to outstanding success, leaving the Clinton camp to wonder why they didn't have it "put away by Feb.5".

On November 7, 2006, all the top Democrats graced the stage of the Hyatt Regency ballroom in Washington for a big election-night victory party. All of them, that is, except Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The party leadership had accused Dean of spending too much money on rebuilding moribund parties in red states and not enough on key Congressional races where Democratic pickups could strengthen their narrow majority.

The results that night, as Democrats recaptured Congress, seemed to settle the argument in Dean's favor. But key Democrats, including Representative Rahm Emanuel, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, weren't satisfied, and Dean opted to stay away from the celebration, doing TV interviews instead. A week later, Democratic strategist James Carville, another prominent Clintonite, labeled the DNC leadership "Rumsfeldian in its competence," and called on Dean to resign. He floated the name of Harold Ford Jr., now chair of the right-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, as a replacement. There was rampant speculation inside the Beltway that Carville wasn't offering an unsolicited opinion but rather carrying water for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Early last year, Obama began placing resources and satellite offices in red states like Idaho, Alaska and Alabama, where he won handily. These were the sort of places in which Dean has heavily invested . For any progressive who wants to see Democrats compete in all fifty states, and believes in the Dean Strategy, you'd have to give the nod to Obama, who wisely hit places where the party had barely existed years before. "They told me there weren't any Democrats in Idaho," Obama told a raucous crowd of 14,000 in Boise. "I didn't believe them." On Super Tuesday Obama won fifteen of Idaho's eighteen delegates and virtually swept the Midwest and Mountain West. As Howard would say: