(This story is developing as we speak, I think we’re getting closer to the Obama campaign’s process on this. Check out the Bee story and keep an eye out for more stories in print tomorrow. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

On Monday, juls wrote about how the campaigns could “prune” their delegate lists.  I didn’t pay much attention, but perhaps I should have.  Here is the new list.

Today, I learned that I have been pruned out of my delegate race. I will say that I didn’t really expect to win. There were people in my district that were better organized and better known (Chris Daly). And they both made the cut. However, I didn’t figure the campaign to whom I donated money, and to whom I traveled to two different states for, would decide that I wasn’t loyal enough. Heck, I spent March 4 working for Buffy Wicks (the CA field director) in Texas at the Election Hotline.

I understand that the Obama campaign is wary of the Clinton campaign picking off some of their pledged delegates, but you would figure that the least they could do would be to cross reference their donation rolls and their volunteer lists.

I understand that Obama cut about 1000 of his delegate candidates, compared to about 20 for Clinton. If Barack Obama wanted to increase participation and activism amongst youth leaders, cutting leaders in the  California Young Dems and other youth leaders wasn’t the best way to start.  

So, if you were “pruned”, I feel your pain.

UPDATE: I want to add one thing about this process. Specifically, this is a function of the Obama campaign, and if they expect to get any more time or money from me, I need to hear some sort of reasonable answer from the campaign.

I want to thank some folks from the CDP for letting me know and talking about the issue. The CDP has no power over this, but they will get some of the blame for being the messenger. The party deserves blame for many things, but this isn’t one of them.

UPDATE 2: I did some more research on the party’s website, and I think I had the numbers a bit off.  Clinton cut around 40-50 of her approximately 950 delegate candidates.  Obama cut about 950 of about 1700 candidates. Somebody was getting paranoid…is that you Axelrod?

UPDATE 3: The SacBee now has a story about the delegate pruning. I sound very heartbroken, perhaps a little more than I actually am, but, ah well, dramatic license and all.

I also got an email from somebody familiar with the process. Essentially they said that the Chicago folks had the California Obama team ask the volunteers running the caucus to cut down for logistical and convention reasons. The results were less than exceptional, but better than the initial plan: trimming it to the minimum three people per slot.

UPDATE 4: k/o is right in the comments. Who am I kidding, I’ll still give Obama money and my time. And perhaps I was a bit out of line when I said otherwise. However, as Lucas points out, it’s a pretty top-down move from a campaign that is supposed to be bottom-up. I can forgive mistakes and move on, but I still think the campaign needs to send out a message to its grassroots supporters that it values and respects them.

The Clinton campaign money troubles are pretty well known.  They have been delaying payment to increase their cash on hand and ability to pay for campaign activities rather than pay off their debts.  The media, particularly Politico, which brought me to this hilarious article by the local Sacto CBS station.

Bill Clinton may have charmed the crowd at UC Davis in January, when 7500 people showed up to see him, but charm has not covered the Clinton campaign bill.

The University of California in Davis is ready to take the Clinton presidential campaign to a collection agency if they do not pay back the thousands of dollars they are still owed.

The campaign owes UC Davis $6,350.  The Marching Band cost $500, cleanup $250 and $5,600 for the services of the UC Davis police.

“I’m more than willing to be held accountable for it, because that’s the way life is,” Hillary Clinton said to a Montana crowd on Monday. There is no word whether she’ll apply that philosophy here, or if she even knows about the outstanding debt.

CBS 13 tried to get a quote from the Clinton campaign, but no dice.

UC Davis is planning to put its final bill out this week, and if the debt has not been settled within a month, they are going to turn the matter over to a collection agency.

Something tells me that going to the press will speed up the payment.

When you show up to the district level caucuses this weekend, you may be in for a surprise.  Under the rules listed in the Delegate Selection Plan (pdf) the campaigns must file with the CDP chair by today at 5 pm a list of candidates for delegate that number at least three times the number of slots that they approve.  This is Rule 12. E(1) Reg 4.23.

There are 241 district level slots (121 females, 120 males) and there are over 2,350 candidates running.  Assuming that both campaigns take the time to go through the names and pick out only three per slot that means that there will only be 723 viable candidates this weekend.  The deadline to submit the approved names just passed, so we should know the deal some time soon.

This is all part of the process and it makes total sense for the campaigns to spend the time going through the names and double checking that they have strong candidates for their delegate slots.  While it seems unlikely that we will head to the convention not having a single candidates, the campaigns need to work hard now just in case.

Are you a delegate candidate that has been contacted by the campaign?  Any CDP staffers who want to weigh in here?  Don’t forget to go to the CDP website and see where your caucus is located this weekend.  I know they have been firming up locations.

[UPDATE] I have transcribed the relevant rule.

Each presidential candidate, or that candidate’s authorized representative(s), must then file with the California Democratic Party Chair by Monday, April 7, 2008, at 5 pm, a list of such candidates he or she has approved, provided that approval be given to at least three (3) times the number of candidates for delegate men and three (3) times the number of candidates for delegate women, and three (3) times the number of candidates for alternate men and three (3) times the number of alternate women to which the presidential candidate is entitled.

I read this to mean that candidates are required to hand in lists, but they could be all of the candidates who have filled out their forms.  They have a minimum, but not a maximum that they must submit to the CDP.

That’s a lot of names there, huh? I was thinking about throwing Carole Migden in there as well, but decided to limit myself. At any rate, former President Clinton went off at the mere mention of Governor Bill Richardson. From Matier and Ross:

The Bill Clinton who met privately with California’s superdelegates at last weekend’s state convention was a far cry from the congenial former president who afterward publicly urged fellow Democrats to “chill out” over the race between his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Barack Obama.

In fact, before his speech Clinton had one of his famous meltdowns Sunday, blasting away at former presidential contender Bill Richardson for having endorsed Obama, the media and the entire nomination process.

“It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended,” one superdelegate said.

Apparently, Rachel Binah of Mendocino County brought up the New Mexico Governor’s name, and Bill went off.  CDP Chair Art Torres reportedly called Binah to apologize for the former President. I don’t know what’s going on with President Clinton, but perhaps he needs more sleep or something. It’s clear the pressures of the campaign are getting to him in a way totally unlike the 1992 campaign.

The Clinton campaign is shunting the former President off to minor markets where the locals in the media and the activist set are just excited to see somebody of that character. Clinton himself titled his new role as “rural hitman.” Perhaps they have yoga studio in South Bend, IN where he could “just chill out.”

I’m live blogging President Clinton’s speech to the CDP convention. The former President’s first point seems to be that he got bloodied by a long primary, and that he won nonetheless. So, just chill out people.

He went on to describe some sort of position that would focus regionally. So, there’s going to be a California “czar” or something like that. Interesting that he said that Hillary will compete everywhere. Some sort of 50-state strategy. …

… He then went on to tick off the boxes. The mortgage crisis, green jobs, …

And then there’s healthcare. Here in California, it was Republicans who were touting the individual mandate, and Democrats who were fighting it. Hillary supports the mandate with cost caps, kinda like the ABX1 plan, but, you know, different. Either way, the insurance plans get massive premiums, the question is whether they actually use them for care.

He seems to be losing the hall a bit. It’s quieter, perhaps even not as loud as Harris.

“There’s one area where Hillary is more conservative than Bush: the budget. She supports repayment of the debt…”

Nice little talk about the overstretched military and homeless veterans.

In wrapup mode now, she hopes to be a “change agent.” Who will build the best future for America.  Kinda weird, because a lot of these are applause lines, but the applause is sporadic and quiet. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the speech was almost an hour long, and there’s not a whole lot new here.

It’s not only that Hillary Clinton is running a one-night-only concert with Elton John in New York on April 9, just 13 days before the Pennsylvania primary.  It’s not that she’s doing a swing through California the week before.  I think it’s that she’s doing a partial low-dollar event at the Wilshire Theater the night of April 3, which sounds like a town hall meeting to me.  That leads me to the conclusion that she’s in serious financial trouble.

This is the kind of event you have in a state where you’re campaigning.  I suppose it’s possible that it was scheduled earlier on the expectation that the nomination would be hers by this time.  But it doesn’t make any sense to do it now.  Pennsylvania would be three weeks out by that point, and I would have expected both candidates to park themselves there.  You don’t go off the campaign trail to raise money unless you REALLY need it.  And in addition, you don’t go off the campaign trail to have a low-dollar event unless all your high-dollar donors are maxed out.  Forget about going to the convention if there’s no funda to get there.  If Clinton can’t financially compete in states where she doesn’t have a built-in advantage, like Indiana and North Carolina, she’ll wind up even further behind on pledged delegates and the popular vote.  There’s no path to the nomination in that case.

In the pre-Internet age, this race would already be over because Clinton wouldn’t have the money to continue.  Because she waited so damn long to even ask her supporters to contribute online, she might be in the same situation.  It’s interesting and perhaps fitting that the fact that Clinton doesn’t believe in bottom-up democracy could lead to her downfall.

The turnout numbers for the presidential primary were absolutely insane.  The official numbers from Secretary Bowen state that 74.26% of registered Democrats in California cast ballots.  Now that isn’t totally accurate because that includes the DTS voters who pulled Democratic ballots.  The real number is expected to be closer to 65%.  But even that number is striking.  Tim Herdt has a great column today on how this is part of a shift to Democrats larger than just this one election.

Those numbers suggest that Republicans can no longer count on a voter-turnout advantage that in the past has helped GOP candidates overcome the party’s minority status in voter registration.

“Republicans have almost always done better because they have the people who always vote,” said Republican analyst Tony Quinn. “But this year you had the reverse.”

To some degree, the numbers reflect the unusual excitement arising from the contentious nomination battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, an unsettled battle that may linger until the Democratic convention in August. That historic contest helps explain – but does not fully account for – the enormous disparity between the 5.1 million votes cast for Democratic candidates in the state Feb. 5 and 2.8 million cast for Republicans.

Quinn, co-publisher of a data book that breaks down every political district in the state, says the Democrats’ February surge in turnout is the continuation of a trend.

It has been conventional wisdom in California that since Republicans outperform their voter registration, compared to Democrats that the voter registration gap is not as significant as it appears.  That appears to be changing.

Herdt points to the Lt. Gov. race in 2006 as being further evidence of a trend.  The last-minute polls had McClintock leading Garamendi.  But Garamendi won on election day by 4%.  The turnout model the pollsters were using was off.  Democrats turned out in greater numbers than expected.

Quinn, who’s been analyzing partisan races in California for decades, said it was once a truism of state politics that because of the partisan turnout advantage a Republican could win any district in which GOP registration reached 40 percent.

He doesn’t believe that applies any longer.

Although both parties have declined as a share of the electorate in recent years as the number of independents has soared, Quinn said the remaining Democrats are more loyal and more reliable than Democratic voters of the past.

“You’ve got a more pure Democratic electorate,” he said. “You no longer have the Reagan Democrats.”

(emphasis mine)

That means that there are a lot more seats in play than were earlier.  Dave is the man with the numbers, but as we look to challenge Republicans for their seats. the calculation of viability for Democrats in an individual district is changing.  That is a damn good thing considering our voter registration numbers are slipping, though admittedly the Republicans are dropping faster.

Naturally this has an impact on the presidential election.  Sen. McCain has been making noise about making a run here in California for our electoral votes.  The numbers last month should give him pause.  California is a blue state.  If anything we are trending more blue, not purple.

The latest set of numbers, Quinn believes, will make it more unlikely that Republicans will seriously compete in California in the fall presidential election.

“It makes it very hard for Sen. John McCain’s people to argue they will be able to put the state in play,” he said. “Those turnout figures are bad because, in order for this state to be in play, Republicans have to come out the way they did with Reagan.”

Ben Tulchin, a pollster at Greenland Quinland Rosner notes that there is currently a 21%  gap between Republican turnout numbers and Democrats.  That is nearly double what Al Gore and John Kerry carried California with.

Here at Calitics, we’ve been heavily focused on the statehouse, but here at Take Back America there is a buzz about the Obama speech. Take a look at the big corporate papers or the blogs, and you see that something changed in America yesterday. Heck, it even got a self-described “Clintonista” at myDD to praise Obama. And it’s at the top of the rec list. Perhaps it won’t be something remembered for a generation, but it just might be one of those days where you remember where you were. The big CA papers even saw fit to pause from their pinata fun-time with Jeremiah Wright:

Sen. Barack Obama, another lanky lawyer from Illinois, planted one of those rhetorical markers in the political landscape Tuesday, when he delivered his “More Perfect Union” speech in Philadelphia, near Independence Hall. The address was meant to dampen the firestorm of criticism that has attached itself to the senator’s campaign since video clips of race-baiting remarks by his Chicago church’s former pastor began circulating last week.

But instead of offering a simple exercise in damage control, Obama chose to place his discussion of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright’s incendiary comments in a wider consideration of race in America — and the results were, like those Kennedy achieved in Houston, historic.(LAT 3/19/08)

I, of course, was here at TBA where I squeezed into the press room to watch it on CNN. There was a rapt silence across the room as the speech floated from discussions of his occasionally thoughtless grandmother to the acknowledgment of the very real divides of race.  Immediately afterwards, the campaign emailed out the text and video of the speech.  

This surely won’t be the end of the race issue, but perhaps we can mold the debate to something that’s more productive. A chunk of the speech over the flip.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

The issue is not just race, it’s that resources are not shared evenly. It’s that people are hurting under this administration. We cannot have a Third Term. So perhaps this speech will redirect our focus on the issues that people care about.