Yes, we are an ATM for the presidential candidates.  They come here and take our money and rarely actually campaign.  That is unlikely to change, but that does not mean that we have not seen a big difference in how Obama worked this state as compared to his predecessors and competitors.  He has hit the holy grail, which Dean scratched the surface on back in 2004.  The combination of small donor, highly active volunteers and new Silicon Valley cash has fueled his volunteer run offices and campaign activities in other states.

Jose Antonio Vargas has an wonderful profile of an Obama delegate Linnie Bailey, a supervolunteer and political neophyite who ended up running GOTV operations in CA-44.  He follows her from her first $10 donation to running an official campaign office.

One Saturday morning in early November, she drove 30 minutes north to attend a Camp Obama meeting at a storefront church. She had read about the event online. Organized by Obama staffers, Camp Obama is Politics 101 for volunteers, where they learn the value of phone-banking, the goals of precinct captains and how to register new voters. About 25 people attended — young and old, black, white and Latino. When she introduced herself to the group, “Hi, I’m Linnie,” a few recognized her name.

She left the meeting tasked by Obama staffers as the “area coordinator” in charge of Corona. Working with Jose Medina, 55, the area coordinator in nearby Riverside, she scheduled an informal meeting of those from the two cities at a Barnes & Noble the following Wednesday. She posted it on BarackObama.com. They expected 10 people. About 20 showed up.

After the meeting, Medina, a fixture in the local political scene who teaches Chicano studies at Riverside Polytechnic High School, suggested they run as Obama delegates for the convention. She agreed. Outside the bookstore, they shook hands on it.

The period between December and February was, in Bailey’s words, “a complete whirlwind.” She was so effective in organizing meetings, attending rallies and networking that Jocelyn Anderson, an Obama staffer overseeing southern California, asked Bailey to be a “regional field organizer.” “Here’s the thing about Linnie,” Anderson says. “She was always on overdrive and she never said no.”

Now Bailey is hard at work a running voter registration program.  She is in a heavily Latino area, bringing new voters to the Democratic party and Barack Obama.  Oh and she is planning a run at her local community college board of trustees seat.  That is a legacy that will last well after Novemeber.

The flip side of the equasion are all of the new big money people Obama has been able to bring in.  The Chronicle today notes that if Northern California was a state, we would be the forth in the nation in dollars donated to presidential candidates.  This is the year of the love affair between the Silicon Valley and Barack Obama.  Six out of the top 10 zip codes for fundraising in CA are in NorCal.  (flip it)

“It’s not that Southern California is giving less, it’s that Northern California is giving more” said Anthony Corrado Jr., a professor of government at Colby College in Maine, who specializes in campaign finance. “Silicon Valley has become much more engaged, and the new technologies of social networking and Internet-giving have made Northern California much more involved.”

Josh Green at the Atlantic, who I admittedly really enjoy has an article on the Obama fundraising machine and describes it as a Silicon Valley startup that naturally attracted Silicon Valley donors.

Meanwhile, the Obama machine rolls on, to the delight of its early stakeholders. “They’ve gone from zero to 700 employees in a year and raised $200 million,” Steve Spinner says of the campaign. “That’s a super-high-growth, fast-charging operation.”

It’s also one whose growth curve is coming into sharper focus. The Obama campaign has not yet assumed a place in Silicon Valley lore alongside Apple, Google, and Facebook. But a few more months could change that. The hottest start-up in the Valley right now won’t make anybody rich, but it might put the next president in the White House.

Barack Obama was new to most Americans when he entered the presidential race, in February 2007. But he was familiar to Silicon Valley in at least one way: like a hot Internet start-up in the glory years, he had great buzz, a compelling pitch, and no money to back it up. He wasn’t anybody’s obvious bet to succeed, not least because the market for a Democratic nominee already had its Microsoft.

New Silicon Valley bundlers stepped up and helped raise the other half of Obama’s money, from people giving more than $100 at a time.  They were drawn to him for the same reasons why they give 20 year olds millions of dollars to run with a bright idea: they have a vision and experience is often times the exact opposite of what you need when you are trying something new and different.

Furthermore, in Silicon Valley’s unique reckoning, what everyone else considered to be Obama’s major shortcomings-his youth, his inexperience-here counted as prime assets.

I asked Roos, the personification of a buttoned-down corporate attorney, if there had been concerns about Obama’s limited CV, and for a moment he looked as if he might burst out laughing. “No one in Silicon Valley sits here and thinks, ‘You need massive inside-the-Beltway experience,'” he explained, after a diplomatic pause. “Sergey and Larry were in their early 20s when they started Google. The YouTube guys were also in their 20s. So were the guys who started Facebook. And I’ll tell you, we recognize what great companies have been built on, and that’s ideas, talent, and inspirational leadership.”

As Jane Hamshire wrote on HuffPo, “forget what Clinton did wrong.  What did Obama do right?”

He may have lost the primary here, but he got way more out of California than a few delegates.  The Obama campaign created new activists and donors large and small.  He will activate them through the fall and the big question is how much will they build on the Dean legacy of continued political activeness like Linnie Bailey is planning to do.

Senator Feinstein was in the midst of a legitimately big bit of the primary recently, hosting the one-on-one meeting between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that helped resolve the race.  Feinstein remains a strong Clinton partisan and loud proponent of the so-called “Dream Ticket” which would give Clinton the VP spot on the ticket; which is fine except that she’s lying to sell it.

Feinstein appeared on “This Week” yesterday continuing to push the outright lie that Sen. Clinton won the popular vote in the primary.  This is hardly the first time that Feinstein has pushed this dishonest notion (also here) and as kos (among others) continues to point out, only by ignoring the caucus states and giving Obama zero votes from Michigan does this math work. Of course, there are very few elections where you get to 1) claim victory despite not winning the actual contest in question or 2) choose after the fact which votes count and which don’t. Or so goes the “democracy” notion.

First and foremost, every time this dishonest talking point gets trotted out, it makes everyone involved look stupid. Senator Feinstein is by no means stupid, so it’s troubling that she would debase herself and the candidate she supports by throwing this garbage around. It doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) actually help if the goal is to get Clinton into the VP spot. It comes off as being the last resort when there are no merits to run on.

Which is the second trouble: there’s a perfectly strong and reasonable case to be made for Clinton as VP. I don’t personally support the notion, but it’s a debate with merit that can be engaged in honestly and directly and can make the party stronger by speaking passionately about the strengths of our Democratic leaders. Instead of focusing on Senator Clinton’s actual strengths though, we get these lies that should be insulting to Clinton and continue to undercut Obama’s general election campaign by implying weakness.

Finally, the myopic focus on Obama and Clinton, while serving during the primary process to dramatically expand the party’s base and participation, is now at the point where it’s sucking all the air out of the room and is detrimental to moving forward with a wider focus. It’s distracting from downticket races that have been waiting for attention, it’s detracting from expanding and unifying field organization, and it’s undercutting the Democrats vs. Republicans debates that need to be the full focus across the country.

I understand full well that this is all posturing for the VP slot. But it’s not the first time that posturing for personal gain from the Clinton camp has undercut broader opportunities. As far as I know this is not coming from Senator Clinton; I thought her speech on Saturday was excellent and that she’s striking the right chords for party unity and healing. I’ve been on the side of tough primary and general losses and I fully appreciate the passions that can linger after the votes are counted and don’t begrudge anyone for that or presume to tell anyone to “just get over it.” But the least we can do for the candidates, the party, and the country is to be honest and constructive going forward.  And Feinstein’s lies are not helpful.

The American Leadership Project, a California based 527 lead by a pair of folks the CA-blogosphere knows something about, Roger Salazar and Jason Kinney, is alive again.  It had been quiet after posting after some half-hearted attempts at media buys in Ohio and Indiana.

Well, they birthed 2 new ads, one for Montana and one for Puerto Rico. Not sure on the ad buy for these, but for context, in Ohio they had some ads up on YouTube for weeks and only got them on the air for the last couple days. (h/t TPM)

Montana:

Puerto Rico: (Spanish)

Hey, did you think Barack Obama was beating John McCain? Well, you might be “surprised”! Check back in a couple of hours for the shocker:

A new L.A. Times/KTLA poll tested the proposition in McCain matchups with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And in at least one of the scenarios, the results may surprise many folks.

We aren’t at liberty to reveal the exact results yet; for that, check out our homepage (latimes.com) about 5 p.m. EDT today (2 p.m. PDT).(LA Times blog 5/23/08)

And so, dutifully, I check back.  Whoa…it says the same thing as the PPIC poll! I am blown away by…by…well, I’m not.

Obama led McCain in the poll, 47-40%; in a Clinton matchup with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, she got 43%, he held steady at 40%. (LA Times blog 5/23/08)

This poll is substantially closer than the very comfy lead that Obama held against McCain in the PPIC poll, but nonetheless, this is hardly shocking.  I did find the sub-headline in the LA Times article interesting, quite similar to what I had said the other day about the “big states” argument: “Clinton would also defeat McCain in the fall, but by a smaller margin. The numbers undercut Clinton’s argument that she is the Democrat best able to deliver big states in the general election.”

Al Giordano at The Field is now reporting that the Cardoza switch to Obama (he was previously a Clinton superdelegate) is the beginning of a major exodus of 40 Clinton superdelegates to Obama (Update: as noted in the blockquote, the 40 number includes pledged delegates as well):

The Field has learned that Cardoza is the first of a group of at least 40 Clinton delegates, many of them from California, that through talking among themselves came to a joint decision that all of them would vote for Obama at the convention. They have informed Senator Clinton that it’s time to unite around Obama, and that they will be coming out, one or two at a time, and announcing their switch between now and the convention if Senator Clinton doesn’t do the same.

Cardoza is one of the leaders of this effort (which includes not only superdelegates, but here’s something that should set off some paranoia in Camp Clinton: there are pledged Clinton delegates in “The Cardoza 40,” too). One Field Hand reports that during a recent Cardoza fundraising event in California the effort was discussed openly in front of other Democrats. Cardoza’s announcement, today, sent the message that the effort is serious and for real.

I don’t quite understand the logic of dribbling out the endorsements between now and the friggin’ convention – better to come out as a bloc and have done with it – but no matter how they do this it’s clear that the Democratic primary process is over and Barack Obama is the nominee. Yes, that’s been the case for some time, but with this shift it finally seems over.

And the timing of the announcement may be related to Hillary’s Calvinball approach to the MI and FL delegations, as Cardoza explained (quoted at The Field):

I am deeply concerned about the contentious primary campaign and controversy surrounding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan – two states Democrats need to win in November. I will not support changing the rules in the fourth quarter of this contest through some convoluted DNC rules committee process. Yet, we must find a resolution to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates so these states’ voters are represented at the Convention. I believe we need to avoid this potentially divisive situation by uniting behind one nominee and bringing the party together immediately. Therefore, I have made the decision to support Senator Obama at the Democratic Convention in my role as a super delegate.

One of the fascinating things about this campaign is that since the week before South Carolina, everything she did to try and win voters has wound up backfiring and driving more Democrats – particularly electeds, but also African Americans – into Obama’s camp. That’s not to deny Obama’s appeal to voters and his amazing organizational power – but Hillary rarely helped her own cause, and her ridiculous comments about MI and FL seem to have finally ended her last, dim chances at winning the nomination.

Reduced to pleading for the vice presidential post, the Clinton campaign had better start figuring out the best way to concede the nomination to Obama if they are to have any hope of salvaging her reputation.

I’m super-duper proud to announce that Calitics will be the official state blog for California at the DNC Convention in Denver this August!  We’ll be covering all of the action from the floor of the convention, actually seated within the California delegation. We actually only have one press pass to share amongst the Calitics Crew that will be attending, but we’ll work to maximize the efficacy of said press pass. (Also, shout out to DNC folks. California has 10% of the delegates, why only slightly greater than 1% of the state blogger passes?)

We’ll be giving out some more details as we get closer to the convention (the end of August).  These things are always more about the presentation than any actual stuff that happens there. While this year isn’t all that likely to be different, there does exist a remote possibility of some drama.  Either way, it should be an interesting experience for those of us that will be attending.

Pretty fancy video, huh? Howard Dean went all out for our (state or territory).

In order to rise from a relative unknown who lost to Chicago legend Bobby Rush in 2000 to the cusp of a Presidential nomination today, Barack Obama did not only have to court all elements of the varied coalitions that rule over politics in Chicago, he had to build the pie of voters large enough to be someone all those coalitions wanted to rally behind.  In 1992, Obama, working as a community organizer, registered 150,000 residents throughout Chicago to vote in what ended up being a landmark election, as Carol Moseley Braun became the first female African-American ever elected to the US Senate.

This weekend I attended an Obama Vote for Change rally in South LA which ended up registering 615 new voters.  It was one of over 100 events all over the country; here’s a report of another one in Birmingham, Alabama.  Over 400 volunteers attended the Los Angeles event, heard from a few speakers, were trained in voter registration (most of them were doing it for the first time), and sent out into the surrounding area.  Now, 600-some new voters in the LA area isn’t going to sway much politically or ensure an already-fairly-assured Democratic victory in California.  But it does build the tent, not only for the general election but beyond.  I’ve written at length about how Obama’s gamble is to build an electorate that’s so big that he has a serious, almost insurmountable advantage for both his election and his agenda.  A nationwide effort maximizes resources, keeps that army of volunteers excited and doing work, and builds that base to be dispatched for the general election.  In addition to voter registration, the volunteers were signing up registered voters to volunteer later in the campaign.  We could see a million people on the ground all across the country in November.  That’s special – and different.

John Kerry outsourced the field and mobilization to ACT and other outside groups and it was a stupid way to go.  Obama thinks he has a better idea that will work long beyond the election, and I support that aspect of it.  I worry about his shutting out the outside groups that have come out of the progressive movement since Bush’s first election, but I will note that yesterday’s event was at the campaign offices of Mark Ridley-Thomas, a progressive running for LA County Supervisor, and the event in Huntington Beach doubled as the kickoff event for Congressional candidate Debbie Cook.  So there is a layering effect, where the local candidates are benefiting from Obama’s work at the national level.