Hello from Columbus, OH, live from the Barack Obama headquarters.  The campaign has taken over three storefronts in a row, including a former discount used clothing store, complete with changing rooms.  They have all been bursting with activity nearly from dawn to dawn.  There is a cot in the back of the former clothing store for the data guru to catch a few hours/minutes of sleep when he can.

The offices are packed with weary staff, many of whom are on their third or fourth state, but they are fueled by the energy from an army of eager volunteers who flood the office taking walk lists and any piece of paraphernalia that isn’t nailed down.  The food donations have been so plentiful that there is a full-time volunteer who has dedicated himself to coordinating the meals.  There has been pulled pork, pizzas, an unlimited supply of cut peppers and dip, burgers, sandwiches and of course plenty of caffeinated beverages.  Here is a picture that really doesn’t do the spread justice.

Yesterday’s massive door knocking was a complete success, as part of an audacious 1 million door push for the weekend.  The turnout was huge, particularly aided by the Change-to-Win unions who have pulled out all of the stops.  The experienced field staff here has been impressed by the knowledge and dedication of the union members, who have bolstered an already remarkable volunteer army.

As for my part, I have been busy helping out with field work, mostly planning and logistics for election day,   Naturally I am pretty chained to my laptop and using my organizing/tech skills to help with internal communications.  I have been working beside a number of political professionals like myself who are here volunteering (aka taking some vacation time).  They like me are impressed with the level of organization and integration of every facet of the campaign into the overall efforts.  The teams are not siloed and it is benefiting them in innumerable ways.  I am of course already tired, having flown a red eye here and worked until the wee hours last night dealing with spreadsheets and other fun activities.  There is much more of that to come.

(volunteers arriving in the office after church)

Barack Obama is here in Ohio this weekend, and then heads to Texas for the last two days.  He has plenty of surrogates here, including members of the Arcade Fire who are playing several free concerts for him.  This thing is tight, with the polls showing Clinton with a narrow lead.  The folks here are working hard to eliminate that and bring this home for Barack.  As the voter information flyer being created beside me reads “Our Moment is Now”.

Below is a shot of the view directly above my desk: an exposed fuse box, grassroots sign for Michelle Obama, and a Homeland Security special: duct tape and plastic sheeting to try and keep the winter out of the office from a massive fan.  It is a pretty typical campaign office, full of random crappy furniture, boxes of walk lists, t-shirts and office supplies everywhere and paper strewn about.  I love it.

I don’t watch much in the way of TV ads when I’m at home. My replayTV cuts those out of my life. I occasionally go searching political ads out on YouTube or catch them on websites, but I’m definitely a bit hard to reach with regular TV ads. But here in Texas, even with a TiVo, I can’t avoid them. That’s because pretty much every ad is for some political candidate or another.

Obama definitely has more of them, but Clinton definitely has a strong presence on the air. To the right you’ve got SEIU’s 527 pro-Obama ad. To the left you’ve got one of Clinton’s ads that she’s running here in Texas. It seems to be a slightly modified version of an Ohio ad, with less union shoutouts and more Texas flags.  And Hillary’s Latino song seems to be everywhere too, and, wow, that catches in your mind pretty quickly.

I suppose I really couldn’t say if the presidential candidates advertised a whole lot more in Texas than in California, but I think what makes it so much more noticeable are all the other campaigns at the same time. You have the primary for the Senate campaign, where Rick Noriega is running against a perennial candidate and some random Republican-turned-Democrat. By the by, Noriega was at yKos last year, where I had a chance to meet him. He was quite an interesting, and impressive man. But far more visible are all the ads for the state House and judgeships. Man, there must be hundreds of ads for all the different state court judgeships.  It must be like Christmas in March for the ad sales folks.

And then there are the signs, oh, the signs. At well-trafficked corners you have dozens of massive signs competing for your attention. Like for Dawnna Dukes, the Democrat who votes for Republican Speakers of the House every single time, yet keeps getting reelected in a heavily Democratic district. The reason I bring up Dukes, well check out the ad over the flip where her real Democratic challenger name drops the presidential candidates.  

And I could go on for much, much longer with all these ads. As I said, they are pretty much every ad on TV here in Texas these days. I’m not sure what Bud Light is going to do to make Texans consider drinking that stuff with the ad time all taken up.

Clinton has a big town hall airing live on Fox Sports (interesting choice) and at HillaryClinton.com on Monday night. I’m going to try to get a ticket for that, should be an interesting event, even if only for the crowd interaction.

I hate to admit this, but I get the “dead trees” version of the San Francisco Chronicle. I know, not very eco-friendly, or really bloggy-centric, but what can I do. On occasion, I like to read something on a piece of paper. Don’t worry, I’m sure the paper-based Chronicle has an expiration date in the fairly near future. But, while the questions of the Chronicle’s form are being answered, there are other questions about just how the Chronicle is reporting on the presidential campaigns yet to complain about.

For example, take the “Today on the Campaign Trail” highlights a national poll on the Democratic primay, and a poll on the Ohio primary. First of all, why does it matter what the people of, say, California or Iowa, think of the Democratic nomination race. It’s cute, but not all that relevant to the fight for the nomination. We keep getting berated about what each poll means, but we actually learn nothing of real substance. And, it turns out that John Diaz, of the Chron’s editorial board, thinks all the horserace coverage kinda sucks too, over the flip:

Journalists just can’t help themselves, especially those with hours to fill on cable television. Political operatives can’t wean themselves from their addiction to poll numbers either. One of Obama’s campaign aides had barely finished a profanity-laced, cell-phone diatribe to Zogby on Super Tuesday when he took a breath and asked: What do the numbers look like in the next round of states?

“To be perfectly honest with you, there is artwork involved here,” Zogby said of the “science” of polling. “Any of our colleagues who deny that are perfectly delusional.”

If this is art, this season’s collection looks a lot more like grade-school finger painting than a Monet.

Sure, a lot of the Chron’s coverage can be blamed on the AP and other news services, but it’s not like it’s all that challenging to find some “poll-watching” from the Chronicle’s political regulars like Carolyn Lochhead. Say, like in today’s blog post:

Republican columnist Robert Novak helpfully suggests today that someone needs to tell Sen. Hillary Clinton to leave the race. Not so fast. Clinton still leads rival Sen. Barack Obama in Ohio polls, and still has a slight edge in Texas. If she wins both states, she can claim she’s won the big states that matter.

Now, I’m not saying the Chronicle reporters are any better or worse than any other outlet. In fact, I think they are pretty good. But as Diaz points out, we have been so thoroughly beaten into the idea that polls are the be-all of politics, that it’s hard for reporters, or bloggers, to focus elsewhere. But, I hear there are these things called issues, I’ll look into that.

Before I get to the debate, I’d like to send my condolences to the family of the motorcycle officer killed in a traffic accident en route to a campaign event in Dallas.

The debate itself was quite the lovefest that we saw here in California at the Kodak theater. (You can watch the debate at cnn.com or through the numerous clips the two campaigns have posted on youtube.) There were a few jabs in there (“that’s change you can xerox“), but I don’t think anything was landed. The crowd booed the Xerox jab, and Clinton really didn’t come off too well.

Where Clinton did come off well was when she emphasized party unity and the fact that she could, in fact, lose the race. She does humble really well, and after an outright cocky presidency for the last seven+ years, perhaps Americans are craving a bit of humbleness in their next leader.

The Texas polls are now within the margin of error.  An ABCNews poll released yesterday has a Clinton 48-47 lead, and Ralph Brodie at IVR polls has Clinton at 50-45 using a new (untested) turnout model. Doing the Texas two-step will require turnout at both the election and the precinct caucuses. Delegate count will likely be very, very close due to the proportionality and that most of the state Senate districts are even delegates. Obama might be able to pick up some delegates in the delegate rich districts of Austin, Dallas, and Houston, but many of the Latino districts in South Texas are 4-delegates. And these 4 delegate districts require the 62% threshold to break the tie. It’s tough to imagine many of those districts doing anything but 2-2.

More over the flip

Yesterday I was contacted by the Obama campaign to volunteer in Texas. I’ll probably do some work on the campaign, but, of course, I’ll do my best to cover any events in the Austin area for both Clinton and Obama.  I must say, I’m pretty excited to head to Texas for the first election that I can remember that had an effect on the presidency.

Roger Salazar has been firing back about the shaky legal ground the Pro-Hillary 527 he is working for is treading on, or will be treading on when they ask for money and pay to air ads.

There isn’t anything in our efforts that would warrant such a barefaced attempt to quell free-speech with this kind of unsupported legal bullying.

The American Leadership Project was organized in strict adherence to all new federal rules and regulations as a result of a recent Supreme Court decision. It was established to highlight issues of importance to middle-class families. The type of 527 we have organized does not intend to engage in express advocacy or the functional equivalent of express advocacy and so will not qualify as a political committee under the Federal Election Commission rules, but it will, however, fund “electioneering communications” – ads that feature a candidate and run within the 30 days before the election – and so will have reporting requirements with the FEC as well as the IRS. We intend to be open, transparent and to make all full and appropriate disclosures as required by the law.

I am no lawyer, but what they are arguing is that this organization is not actually working to help Hillary Clinton win the Democratic primary.  It means that they cannot ask people for money to help Hillary.  Someone else can sort all of that out.  

What I am concerned with is the messaging Salazar is using.  I’m sorry, but questioning the legality of this organization has not approached anything close to bullying.  There is no big powerful entity trying to shut up the little guy.  Not to mention the fact that they are twisting themselves into pretzels to be able to claim that this is legal with phrases like “functional equivalent of express advocacy”.  

This is a bunch of really rich people trying to evade campaign contribution limits.  Those of us raising concern about this are not trying to take away their free speech.  We just don’t want them to have a bigger megaphone than the rest of us and have disproportionate impact on the outcome of this race.  The use of “free speech” to talk about campaign finance law is a right wing frame.  It is extremely distressing to see it used by a Democrat in the context of campaign where one candidate is outspending the other on the basis of an unprecedented amount of small donors.

(more on the flip)

This to me is the perfect example of the impact of BCRA (McCain-Feingold) on campaign financing.  BCRA both raised the hard dollar contribution limit and attempted to eliminate the use of soft money.  Democrats were expected to be hit the hardest due to our over-reliance on large donors and the Republican’s success at creating a large small donor base, mostly through direct mail.  The goal was to reduce the ability of people to spend large chunks of money on elections.  The Supreme Court upheld these restrictions due to the inherent corrosive influence of money on politics and impact of the appearance of corruption.

Now 6 years later we have a race where one candidate relied on large checks from a small pool of donors and the other raised more money from what is now nearly one million people who have given small contributions.  Hillary Clinton now has a group of donors who want to go back to the days of soft money.  It is a full-fledged attack on BCRA.  Barack Obama’s fundraising is the dream of campaign finance reformers coming to life before their eyes.  

If you go to the Barack Obama home page right now you will see a big flash graphic that reads “The Goal ONE Million People Who Own This Campaign”.  Those now 951,887 (and growing) people who have donate to the campaign have bought the candidate.  In contrast, you have the major donors to Clinton who own her campaign crowing about “free speech” and cutting six figure checks to try and make sure Clinton is not drowned out by nearly one million people.

Look at the messaging Hillary Clinton is using.  This is from a campaign fundraising email she sent out yesterday.

If we want to win in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont, we’ve got to even the odds. We can’t let the Obama campaign overwhelm us financially. Today, I am calling on you and other online supporters to act together, making sure we have the resources to create a fair, level playing field on March 4.

The hundreds of thousands of small Obama donors are in Clinton’s mind and those of her big donors creating an unfair, unlevel playing field.  So they are crowing about “free speech” and saying it isn’t fair when people tell us that we aren’t legally allowed to run a stealth campaign mirroring the messaging of the official campaign.

It is dispiriting to me to see fellow Democrats bemoaning the influence of small donors.  We should be celebrating it and figuring out how we can free our own state and politicians from the corrosive influence of big donors who want something in return for their money.  We shouldn’t have the spokesman for the California Democratic Party, which should be working on their own small donor program accusing us of bullying.

This seems like a very clear contrast between the old way of doing things and the new school approach.  Democrats will go much further by running campaigns and candidates that rely on small donors and volunteers and not simply top down organizing and big media buys.

Here and across my series of 872 blogs, I’ve been pretty vocal about the superdelegate situation, about how it’s a media creation designed to set Democrats against themselves and damage the party’s credibility as we move into the fall.  I’m not the only one, either.  Today comes a thinly sourced story about how the Clinton campaign is vowing to go after pledged delegates who represent the distribution in the various state primaries and caucuses, a charge that the campaign summarily denied.  The truth is that the Democratic Party’s somewhat convoluted system practically demands that some pledged delegates will be up for grabs, but this Politico/Drudge effort doesn’t pass any kind of smell test.  Essentially, my feeling is that the Democratic Party put together a system they never thought they would have to use.  For decades now both parties have created a calendar designed to nominate a candidate as early as humanly possible.  They never considered the implications of having two equally strong candidates and a campaign that would grind on (although let’s get some perspective on that; it’s only February 19 here, and the scenarios being games out may be inoperative in a matter of weeks).  Now that the system is being trotted out, pretty much for the first time ever (arguably, 1984 brought these rules into play), it’s showing a little rust.  OK, a lot of rust.  They’re trying to patch it up and have a bunch of elder statesmen manage this situation.  I think this is a freak-out that is far too premature.

over..

However, I have to continue to call B.S. on this idea that superdelegates will somehow subvert the popular will and act to destroy the Democratic Party from within.  I understand there’s not a lot of belief from those who have seen the party screw over their base time and time again in recent years.  While I agree that the concept of superdelegates should come as a surprise to many, and they almost certainly should be fixed so this doesn’t happen again, there’s a ton of misinformation out there about who these superdelegates actually are.

I talked with Garry Shay, a superdelegate from here in California, a DNC member and the Chair of the Rules Committee for the California Democratic Party.  He is a party activist who has a day job and was concerned by all the media attention taking him away from his work.  He was an antiwar activist who worked hard for George McGovern.  He was elected by the executive board of the CDP to his DNC post and essentially is a representative of the state party rank and file.  That includes someone like me, who ran and won a seat on the Democratic State Central Committee in this state.  The barriers to entry, then, are very low, and the likelihood that these superdelegates are not “party bosses,” whatever that means, but committed activists, is very high.  Shay surmised it was about 1/2 of all superdelegates.  These are in large part, the people who elected Howard Dean to the chairmanship of the party, against the will of much of the elected leadership.  A good summary of who these delegates are is here.

Why are there superdelegates at all?  Basically, before 1972 the process for choosing a nominee was far less small-d democratic.  The McGovern reforms regarding primaries, and the 1974 charter added some structure to the process.  Shay didn’t agree with me totally that this created rules that were essentially designed to not come into play, but he did say that superdelegates were created to “give members more of a connection to the nominee,” almost a psychological basis, rather than a concerted effort to impose their will on the party.  In fact, superdelegates have never sought to choose the nominee in a way that didn’t reflect the popular will.  Even in 1984, when Walter Mondale had a plurality but not a majority of delegates, the superdelegates did not step in and anoint Gary Hart.  

The either/or of whether a political figure has a responsibility to his own conscience or a responsibility to his own constituents is an age-old argument, and I don’t think any side of this debate, with their own partisan reasoning, is going to advance it in any meaningful way.  But clearly, there are outside pressures that would have come to bear on them with or without the overwatch by progressive organizations like MoveOn and DFA.  The candidate with the most votes is going to get the majority of the superdelegates (probably by a similar proportion), and all of these machinations are going to amount to nothing.

Of far more concern to Shay, and myself, is what to do with these delegates in Michigan and Florida.  It’s an issue with few or no winning moves.  Shay suggested a couple possibilities, like seating Florida with delegates halved, or holding new elections.  But there are pitfalls with every scenario and clearly the rules were enforced with an eye to a clear winner emerging.  This was a mistake, but the bigger mistake is exacerbating this by assuming all kinds of bad motives on the superdelegates and the party itself.  The party gave out a bunch of votes to make everybody feel like they were participating and happy about the process.  They never expected it to be decisive.  And it still might not be.  This is a failure of forward thinking, perhaps even incompetence, but not an attempt to hijack the democratic process.

That is safe, but the reputation of the Party may not be.  Several developments over the last few days have given me pangs of concern about the Presidential race – the teflon coating being placed on McCain, the continued implementation in progressive political circles of right-wing smears on Obama and Clinton, and now this furor over superdelegates, which makes the process look very suspect.  This is a narrative that can easily be fed to swing voters across the country, that the Democratic Party is some sort of top-down monolith that will ignore your votes.  It’s actually not true; the superdelegate effort was designed to create inclusion instead of exclusion.  But exposing the underside of the primary process, between caucuses that are inherently disenfranchising and superdelegates that have a bigger say in the process than previously known and delegate distributions that don’t reflect the popular vote, is giving the electorate something of a foul taste.  Come the fall, much of that is likely to be forgotten.  But it could be effectively implemented to really harm efforts both in retaking the White House and downticket.  This is pretty bad news.

By the way, my perfect solution for the superdelegate problem in the future is to only have their votes count on the SECOND ballot, not the first.  That way, they don’t have a say in the initial process, and a percentage of the elected delegates can be established as a bar that can be scaled by a nominee on the first ballot.  This won’t piss off those party officials and will reassure the public, and most important won’t give the media an excuse to include superdelegates in their counts.

Representative Chet Edwards wasn’t supposed to carry that title anymore. He was supposed to be redistricted out of his seat by the Delay redistricting measures. The problem? He beats all comers. His seat is about R+20, yet he keeps winning elections in his Waco, TX based district.

I bring this up because I’ll be heading to Texas next week, so I thought I should bring up some of the information about the race before I get there. Rep. Edwards endorsed Obama at the semi-famous Waco suspension bridge. (Not that I’d knock Waco or anything, but it’s about 1/10th the size of the GG bridge) From his speech:

“As the father of two young sons, I care deeply about the future of our nation, and that is why I am endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president of the United States,” Edwards said. “I believe Sen. Obama can bring about real change in Washington – change that will make a positive difference for average working Americans struggling to keep up with the high costs of health care, gasoline and education.”…

“As someone who has spent most of my adult life fighting for veterans and for military troops and their families, I am convinced that Sen. Obama will be a champion for better health care, housing and quality of life for those who have sacrificed so much for the American family,” Edwards said. “He knows that standing up for our troops, our veterans and their families is the right thing to do – for them and for our nation’s security.”(Waco Trib 2/18/08)

On the Clinton endorsement front, she’s got the popular African-American leader and Congresswoman Shiela Jackson-Lee. Check out a good review of the superdelegates here.

Finally, check out BOR’s review of the Texas system of doling out delegates. Apparently, Senator Clinton’s staff isn’t a huge fan.

UPDATE (Bob): There’s a new CNN poll inside the margin of error. Following a Town Hall in San Antonio tomorrow afternoon, Obama will be traveling to Houston’s Toyota Center (capacity: 19,300) for his Wisconsin night speech with George Lopez. Early voting begins tomorrow.

Well, we had our very brief moment in the sun on Feb. 5, but we’re back where we are used to being now: the nation’s political ATM. Tomorrow, the Big Dog makes a swing through the Bay Area for his wife, hoping to pick up a quick mil for her campaign:

Hillary Clinton may be campaigning elsewhere Monday, but her purse is in California. And her husband is carrying it. Bill Clinton will try to fill it with upward of $1 million from three private fundraisers in the Bay Area on Monday, including two at homes in Saratoga and Portola Valley, to try to keep pace with the Barack Obama money machine.

California has always been a cash cow for presidential campaigns, but until now, candidates usually have made an effort to extend a live hand. With California’s Feb. 5 primary but a memory – and the campaigns long moved on to states from Louisiana to Maine and soon on to Ohio and Texas – stand-ins will be the best Californians will get. The campaigns aren’t looking for votes at this point, though. They want money.(SJ Merc 2/17/08)

California Matters, ahem, almost as much as Ohio. Honestly, I don’t think anybody could have predicted that we would go into March, or even April, for the nomination, but here we are, back in the rearview mirror, wondering who our nominee is going to be.

The Obama campaign is hoping to bring somebody along the lines of a former Sen. Bill Bradley, or somebody like that for a fundraiser, but no specifics were given. California will always have a net ouflow of political dollars. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just the way it’s going to be until the time comes when California is competitive again. I’m hoping that’s going to be a long time. So, man the ATM watch towers if you must, but let’s just make sure that California stays firmly in the blue column for the foreseeable future.  Thanks.

This is a quickie.  I’ve been checking in on the final vote totals at the Secretary of State’s website every day or so, and today was the first change I’ve noticed that actually effects delegates.  In CA-53 in San Diego, additional votes have given Barack Obama a 443-vote lead in a district he trailed in.  This being a 5-delegate district, he would get a 3-2 split there now if counting ended today.  He’s creeping up in CA-50 as well, within 556 votes.

Also, the statewide vote is down to a 9.2% spread, with Clinton at 51.9% and Obama at 42.7%.  That extrapolates to the same delegate split of 71-58, for now, but it’s inching closer to 70-59.

So by my numbers, Clinton leads 204-166 now.  Ridiculously enough, that one delegate shift in CA-53 is equivalent to the recent calling of the entire state of New Mexico for Clinton.

This, of course, also makes Susan Davis’ district no longer “significant” in the eyes of the Clinton campaign.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has added her voice to those who are calling on the superdelegates not to overrule the voters.  She joins MoveOn, Democracy for America and many more in urging the superdelegates not to determine the winner of the Democratic presidential primary by what amounts to a vote in a smokey back room. ChronBlog

Don’t veto the people’s choice.

“I think there is a concern when the public speaks and there is a counter-decision made to that,” she said, adding quickly, “I don’t think that will happen.”

She said the governors, lawmakers, DNC members and others picked as super delegates are chosen through a grassroots process and are accountable to the party’s voters.

“I do think that they have a respect — it’s not just following the returns, it’s also having a respect for what has been said by the people,” Pelosi said. “It would be a problem for the party if the verdict would be something different than the public has decided.”

This is obviously an argument that would appear to most benefit Barack Obama, given that he currently leads in both the pledged delegate count and the popular vote.  Speaker Pelosi’s opinion should wield a great deal of influence on her fellow superdelegates.

Several of those members of the House closest to Pelosi like Rep. George Miller have endorsed Obama.  Miller is on the team of current legislators tasked with swaying superdelegates to endorse Obama.  The Speaker is rumored to be supportive of Obama, but does not want to undermine her own authority by making an endorsement.  I have to assume that there is a two pronged approach from the Obama superdelegate team: if they don’t get the outright endorsement, supporting the “let the people decide” tact is almost as good.