patrickmurfin

 

Family ownership trumped…

 

McHenry County Democrats will stage an old fashion political rally at the Stage Left Café, next to the Opera House in Woodstock, beginning at 6:30 this Wednesday, October 15.  Led by incumbent Representative Jack Franks (D-63) legislative, county-wide, and county board candidates will be on hand.

The rally will lead up to the last Presidential Debate at 8 PM when local Democrats will cheer on Senator Barack Obama.

Among the candidates slated to appear at the rally are Bob Kaempfe, State Representative 64th District; Thomas Cynor, State’s Attorney; Kerry Julian, County Auditor; David Bachmann, County Coroner; and a raft of County Board candidates.

The rally will feature an opportunity an auction of a unique memento of the Obama campaign in McHenry County.

Pizza will be provided by Citizens for Cynor.

The event is free and open to the public.  There will be a cash bar.

First, my apologies for having gone largely AWOL from commentary on this blog for the last month or so.  It’s not that I don’t care.  It’s not that I don’t love my corporal’s guard of faithful readers.  It’s not that I have checked my passion and concern.  It’s just that between preparations for Diversity Day and my work as Secretary of the Democratic Party of McHenry County and campaign stuff, I’ve been too busy to write.  At least one of those things is out of the way now, so look for more gratuitous blathering from this direction.

Anyway, a tip o’ the hat to Chalice Chick for posting this in a .jpg format that I could rip off.  I saw it earlier on ljdemocrats, but was unable to steal it because it was in the wrong format.

Just about everyone who is not paid to  say the contrary agrees that a cool, collected and presidential Barack Obama handed an erratic, irascible John McCain his head in last night's debate.  While McCain may have thought he was going on the offensive, his attacks kept veering off in the direction of old cootism.  His dismissive reference to Obama as “That one” was just one of a series of head scratchers which included gratuitous insults to moderator Tom Brokaw—“Not you, Tom” in response to “who would you appoint Secretary of the Treasury”—and to an African–American questioner about the economy—“You probably never heard of Fannie Mae and Fredie Mac.”

My personal favorite was when McCain pulled a $300 billion program out of his ass.  The proposal for the Federal Government to buy up individual mortgages and renegotiate terms with the borrowers at “adjusted property value” was a jaw dropper for so very many reasons.   First, the just approved $700 bail out bill authorizes, although it does not compel, the Secretary of the Treasury, to do just that.  Second, that this kind of direct relief for mortgagees was a demand of liberal democrats who preferred it to the bank bail out, not in addition to it.  Third, that this pile-on of expenditure comes despite resolute opposition to any tax increases to pay for it thus ballooning the national debt.  And finally, that this little bit of New Deal programming is bound to enrage—as it has—his conservative base, who were already tepid over the Team of Mavericks.

It speaks volumes of McCain’s performance that this biggest, boldest, stupidest gambit has raised hardly a ripple among the nattering classes, save the raving conservatives.

Two of my other favorite McCain antics actually occurred after the debate.  The first was when he spurned Obama’s out reached hand practically throwing wife Cindy—who earlier in the day actually had the audacity to claim the Obama campaign was the dirtiest in history—between them to intercept the Democrat’s grasp.  And then the McCains—both of them—just vanished from the stage leaving Barack and Michelle glad handing the audience, signing autographs and posing for pictures for a full 20 minutes.  C-Span had the whole thing on camera while an announcer’s voice had to explain that the McCains had left the building.  Other cable networks showed part of the Obama charm offensive as their talking heads nattered on.  Judging from the big grins on the part of the audience/questioners, by the time Obama was finished he had personally sewn up the vote of everyone in the room.

Barack Obama kicked off his long-shot presidential campaign with a memorable announcement at the Old State Capital on a frigid March day.  A few short months later Dave Kamper, was present at the birth of a remarkable grass roots campaign that defied conventional wisdom.

I almost never post a whole entry from another blog.  But this, from Daily Kos, was so riveting and informative that I had to share it with you.  All day Sunday the Daily Kos was posting deep analytical entries from their top contributors examining every possible angle of How Hillary Lost.

Then came a first time ever diary from an Obama volunteer who had been active almost from the beginning.  Dave Kamper was a county coordinator in Sangamon County, home of the Illinois state capital at Springfield.  He identifies himself as a union organizer who was recently elected to the County Board.

His entry turned all of the others on their heads.  He explained how Obama won.

Read on!

The Obama campaign a year ago: a not-remotely-insider's perspective

by Dave Kamper

I was a County Coordinator for the Obama campaign in the summer of 2007, down here in Springfield, Illinois.  I never sat in on any strategy meetings.  I never played a role in any key decisions.  I was just a foot soldier, but reading all the front-page assessments by the Daily Kos team made me think back to what things were like a year ago, and what they may say about how Obama won.

Here, then, a few thoughts:

1. Targeting.  We were told this right from the beginning.  I remember my contacts with the campaign saying, as early as May, 2007, that the only way Obama could win was by "competing in all 50 states".  That wasn't idle chit-chat.  The campaign personnel I met (no one high-up, but people who'd been in the room with the higher-ups) all conveyed very clearly the impression that the only way Obama could beat Clinton for the nomination was to be prepared to fight in every state, all the way.  That is, we were clearly given the impression that this was all going to be about delegates, not "momentum".  

In retrospect, it had to be that way for Obama.  During the English Civil War, the one of the leaders of the Parliamentarians declared, "we can beat the King 99 times and he is still King, but if he beat us but once we will be hanged".  From my perspective as a foot soldier in the Obama campaign, they instinctively understood the parallel - Hillary Clinton is a giant in the Democratic Party, and there was not enough "momentum" in the world to force her out of the race.  Obama had to win it the hard way - state by state, delegate by delegate.

2. The field operation.  Our first organized trips to Iowa in the summer of 2007 were comical.  Training of volunteers was minimal at best.  Promises to pair Illinois people up with Iowans for door-knocking went unfulfilled.  Long-planned sojurns to one Iowa county were switched suddenly to another location with little advance warning.

At the time, I thought this boded ill for Obama, but as I think back on it, I realize what was missing from all of it was any kind of rigidity.  They were making mistakes, to be sure, but no one was defending their structure, their ground plan, or their techniques as perfect or even very good.  There was a willingness to hear feedback, even from relative outsiders like me.  A lot of the sudden changes in plan can be seen perhaps more clearly as experimentation.  And, frankly, June 2007 was a good time for experimenting; they had plenty of time to get the kinks out before Caucus Day.

3. The democracy of the movement.  I don't want to make too much of this.  There was a lot of concern about message control and keeping people on task, even then.  But there was also a lot of openness to innovation.  People were using my.barackobama.com to create new Obama support groups - many of them fizzled and did nothing, but some got people involved.  

Even here in Illinois, the Obama campaign did not feel constrained by the existing party structure.  They created events to reach out to new people.  The vast majority of people from Springfield who went to Iowa for Obama had never been involved in the local party at all, yet somehow the campaign found these people AND put them to work.  The campaign was fanatical from the start about lists - once they had a name, they held onto that name and never let go.  Never once did the campaign ever instruct its County Coordinators to run things by the local powers-that-be, or to rely upon existing (weak) party machines to something.  This is what building a movement looked like at the ground level.  Chaotic, to be sure, but empowering.  If Obama had waited until December, 2007, to do this, he would have been destroyed.  They started early, though, so by December they had a machine.  

Perhaps most interesting, especially compared to what I seem to be hearing about other campaigns, was the fundraising was NOT overly stressed.  People were giving money, but when the campaign communicated to us County Coordinators, it was always about volunteers, not about money.  I think they understood quite clearly the principle of "sweat equity" - that if people put their time into something, the money will follow.  Many of the people who first volunteered in June or July didn't donate until 2008, but they did donate.

All of this speaks to something which we don't ever see, but which we recognize the symptoms of: planning.  Sometime, VERY early in the Obama campaign, some group of campaign leaders made a plan.  Perhaps it was written down (how I'd love to see the document), perhaps it was just a meeting of the minds.  But it was a plan, a plan they began to implement in earnest in April and May 2007, just 2 months into the campaign, and which they nourished and strengthened all the way down the line.  From my vantage point as a County Coordinator, I saw some of those aspects of the plan first-hand:

- prepare for a 50-state primary season

- let the field operation evolve organically based on experience

- give the activist base fertile soil with which to create their own flowering contributions to the campaign

Those seem to me to be essential components of Obama's victory.  I always wanted him to win, but I have to admit, one year ago, I didn't feel very confident.  Only in retrospect is it clear that he and his team knew what they were doing, and had a fully-fledged plan to win the nomination.

Wow!  It is semi-officially over. Sort of. Of course I mean the epic battle for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.  Barack Obama is, all of the talking heads on TV assure us, the “presumptive nominee.”

All day yesterday super delegates were falling all over themselves to declare for Obama.  Declarations were coming so fast and furious that neither the Obama campaign web site nor the delegate counters on the news blogs were able to keep up.  But by early evening it was apparent that regardless of the outcome of the South Dakota and Montana primaries the Illinois Senator would have secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination.  Mainstream media began “calling” the hard fought primary season for Obama.

And all day long signals from the Hillary Clinton camp were that she was ready to accept the inevitable and was likely to acknowledge Obama’s victory and at least suspend her campaign.  No ongoing campaign schedules were issued.  Top aids summoned back to New York were reported preparing to leave the campaign.  Some were reported already to be in discussions with Obama’s people about moving over to his campaign.  People at the very highest levels of the campaign were telling reporters off the record that it was over and Clinton recognized it.  Some were saying so publicly.  And Clinton herself acknowledged what Bill had been hinting about for sometime, that she would “consider” an offer of the Vice Presidential nomination.

Yet in the end, she couldn’t do it.  Her speech was not a concession.  She did not suspend her campaign.  She only perfunctorily praised Obama and his campaign before launching into the familiar laundry list of her issues and proclaiming to her supporters that “I heard you.”  She promised at the end to support a united Democratic Party ticket, but gave no hint as to when that end might be.  Then she told supporters “This is your campaign,” and asked supporters to log on to her web site with their advice on what to do.

She must know that her hard core, adoring supporters will flood the web site with messages to “take the fight to the convention” and “never give up.”  She can, if she wants to, point to that inevitable outpouring, as justification to keep on.

The question is, does she want to?  I am not sure even Hillary knows for sure.  I believe she is genuinely torn at least three ways.  The cool political professional recognizes that the race is over and that any attempt to press on will damage the party—and her future career prospects.  The opportunist now sees that forcing Obama to put her on the ticket may provide the surest path that can take her—eventually—to the White House.  But the Amazon warrior with the Nixonian resentments says “to hell with all that” and wants to stick her thumb in the eye of the Party and aim a well placed kick to Obama’s knee cap that could make it impossible for him to win the general election.  Which inner voice she finally heeds is anyone’s guess.

Offering herself up for the vice-presidency yesterday was her boldest move.  Many observers—count me one of them—say it as outright blackmail.  “Take me,” she seemed to say “or my core supporters among mature women, traditional feminists, and ‘hard working white voters’ will sit on their hands in November.” 

And as much as he might resent it, there is a logic there that Obama might find it difficult to resist.  He might feel compelled to at least make a public offer.  Privately, I am sure, he would hope that he could negotiate a polite refusal of the offer in exchange for other promises like a high profile convention roll, help retiring her debt, input on key cabinet appointments and perhaps a promise not to offer the second spot to any other woman.  But then again she could say yes and Obama could find himself with a hostile political operation being run of the Vice President’s office. 

But, typical of the schizophrenia of the last few days, her non-withdrawal and threat to continue her campaign worked against persuading Obama to share the ticket.

In contrast Obama’s speech in St. Paul, while firm in claiming victory, was gracious to a fault to Clinton and her supporters.  He went on at length extolling Clinton’s patriotism, virtues, campaign and supporters.  He was as explicit as he could be in reaching out to them, including giving Hillary the credit—and probably a future central role—in making universal health care a reality. 

The speech itself was another masterful example of Obama’s exceptional skills as an orator.  It was almost universally praised by commentators of all political persuasions, except some of the usual suspects over at Fox News.  The lingering images of the candidate plunging into the sea of ecstatic supporters for almost twenty minutes awed several of them who recognized that this moment represented something new and transforming in American politics.

By contrast, almost everyone—including the Fox News yahoos—agreed that John McCain’s performance earlier in Louisiana bordered on the pathetic.  The selection of a lime green background literally revolted many observers most of whom thought that the speech sucked too.  Ataturk commenting on Eschaton   pretty much summed up the consensus opinion “ ‘It'll make you look like the cottage cheese in a lime jello salad’ Always a good look for an older gentlemen. The aesthetics of McCain's speech, just mercifully completed before a slightly energized crowd of literally dozens, was awesome in how dreadful it was.”

Given the stark contrasts between the two candidates and their campaigns, most senior Democrats are determined to cut away from the distractions of Clinton’s refusal to take no for an answer.  They want to spend the summer with Obama taking his charismatic campaign to the people while pummeling the inept McCain and his inability to disassociate himself with George W’s most disastrous policies.

Since Clinton would not take the hint, party big wigs publicly called on remaining uncommitted super delegates to fall in line behind Obama.  Sam Stein, in the Huffington Post reported that:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, and an official with the Democratic Governors Association released a public statement on Wednesday morning requesting that the party close its ranks and prepare for the race against Sen. John McCain.

The move, which had been anticipated but seemed unnecessary following Obama's clinching of the nomination on Tuesday night, is an indication that few figures beyond Clinton's utmost loyalists are willing to stomach a prolonged vacation period for the New York Democrat to make up her mind.

Will the pressure work?  Or will it only encourage Clinton to defiantly dig in her heels and her supporters to feel “disrespected?”  Only time will tell.

But for now, I’m taking a moment to pump my fist gleefully in the air and celebrate.  Then I’m getting right to work helping to unite the Democratic Party for victory in November and a respite from—to quote a certain late Republican president—“our long national nightmare.”

The Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) created quite a stir this morning when they posted an appeal for progressives to unite around Barack Obama.  The call to action was co-authored by a team of widely known and respected voices of the American left, Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Danny Glover.

Although some progressives were early supporters of the Illinois Senator—the proprietor of this blog counts among their numbers—others were slower to warm up.  Many were passionate supporters of Dennis Kucinich.  Others admired John Edwards for his economic populism and frank acknowledgement of class issues.  Many feminists, including a Who’s Who of “founding mothers” of the modern movement, clung instinctively to Hillary Clinton. Not a few, despairing over repeated Democratic cave-ins to the Administration over the war in Congress, gave up on the Party and all of its presidential candidates as agents of change.  And there have always been those who yearn for a third party—populist, progressive, labor, or socialist—and those who disparage electoral politics and prefer to wait for “the revolution.”

When Kucinich withdrew, he urged his followers to support Obama, a move that shocked some.  But many indeed did so.  Edwards remains neutral to this day and his supporters have gone both ways, but the largest majority of them, particularly among the activists, have come to Obama.  The Kennedy endorsements were an important signal for some.  The increasing tendency of the Clinton camp to a subtle—or not so subtle—“playing of the race card” drove remaining Clinton loyalists in the Black community and many white liberals to Obama.

As the months have passed many progressives have, as they have grown to know him, warmed to Obama  with increasing enthusiasm.  But debate remains.

Locally in McHenry County, Rob Smith, the proprietor of the leading local Democratic discussion forum, Dem-IL-Mchenry@yahoogroups.com, has become increasingly disenchanted with the Democratic Party and has vowed never again “to vote for anyone that does not reflect my values.”  Rob recently announced his resignation as moderator of the group and has initiated a new group for local progressives.  But he continues to post to the Dem group and debate rages there.

Likewise the comments following the post on the PDA web site reflect lingering doubts by some of Obama’s progressive credentials on one hand, and a bitter denunciation of him by others—Clinton supporters—as a leftist fraud who will doom the Democrats in November if nominated.

Still, the trend to Obama among progressives—and lets use the “L” word here—liberals is strong and growing stronger.  I endorse the sentiments of Hayden, Fletcher, Ehrenreich, and Glover and ask any wavering progressives out there to consider them carefully

PROGRESSIVES FOR OBAMA

March 24th, 2008

by Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Danny Glover

All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama. We descend from the proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country. We believe that the movement today supporting Barack Obama continues this great tradition of grass-roots participation drawing millions of people out of apathy and into participation in the decisions that affect all our lives. We believe that Barack Obama’s very biography reflects the positive potential of the globalization process that also contains such grave threats to our democracy when shaped only by the narrow interests of private corporations in an unregulated global marketplace. We should instead be globalizing the values of equality, a living wage and environmental sustainability in the new world order, not hoping our deepest concerns will be protected by trickle down economics or charitable billionaires. By its very existence, the Obama campaign will stimulate a vision of globalization from below.

As progressives we believe this sudden and unexpected new movement is just what America needs. The future has arrived. The alternative would mean a return to the dismal status quo party politics that have failed so far to deliver peace, health care, full employment and effective answers to crises like global warming.

During past progressive peaks in our political history—the late Thirties, the early Sixties—social movements have provided the relentless pressure and innovative ideas that allowed centrist leaders to embrace visionary solutions. We find ourselves in just such a situation today.

We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama’s unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined.

To read the entire appeal and posted comments click here

A typical Wyoming neighborhood.

Wyoming!  No shit, my home state, where for the last three decades bounties have been paid on Democrats’ ears, is today ground zero of the Obama/Clinton grudge match.  Both have been spotted in the state scrapping for the state’s twelve, count them, twelve delegates.  Hillary was up in Casper, Barack stumped in Laramie and so did Bill.

It’s a big state with a tiny population.  There are places in the state where you can stand and there will not be an occupied building in a radius of 100 miles.  Yes, I said places, plural.  The words “wide open spaces” were invented for the place.  Dispersed across that vast landscape (but concentrated in Cheyenne, Casper, Laramie and a half a dozen other “cities” each with under 25,000 residents) were an estimated   515,004 folks in 2006.  By contrast Vermont, with the next lowest population among the fifty states was estimated to have 623,908.

To say that the local citizenry is surprised by the attention would be an understatement.  Almost every news article I checked out on the Wyoming Caucuses, lead with a quote from an astonished local Democrat like this one in the New York Times, “ ‘I have never had a period of compressed political intensity like these last 48 hours,’ Kathleen M. Karpan, a longtime Democratic activist and former Wyoming secretary of state, said Thursday.”

Actually the most astonishing thing about the quote above was that Ms. Karpan actually managed to get herself elected to state wide office at some point as a Democrat.  You see, the Democratic Party in Wyoming has been a more endangered species than the gray wolf, another species gun loving locals itch to take pot shots at.  Both are widely considerd verimin in this conservative state.

It wasn’t always this way.  When I was groing up—in a respectable Republican household, mind you—Democrats were at least competative.  With a base among the state’s blue collar workers in the coal, oil, railroad, lumber and construction industies, Democrats got themselves elected Governor, Senator, or as the states lone Representative.  The tide began to turn in the late Sixties when this hawkish, defense oriented state recoiled at growing anti-war sentiment in the national party.  It was excerbated as the state’s coal and railroad industries deeply cut back on employment through the use of new technologies.  Boom and bust cycles in all of the extractive industries meant many blue collar workers had to leave the state while others breezed in and out without setting down roots.  Finally, movement conservatives were able to use cultural attachments to guns—Wyomans are the ones that Charleston Heston had in mind when he said that to take away guns you would have to “pry it from our cold dead hands.”—and ingrained Western mistrust of the “damn gub’ment” to smash the local Democratic Party and dominate the state with virtual one party rule.

Meanwhile the tiny populattion of Wyoming presented an astonishing run of hyper-conservative actors on the national stage beginning with former Reagan Administration Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who believed it was unnessesary to preserve natural resources because the end of time was coming anyway.  Former Senators Malcom Wallop and especially Alan K. Simpson, who was once widely touted as a possible Vice-Presidential candidate, exerted extrodinary influence.  But of course Wyoming greatest gift to the nation is the Dark Sith Lord Dick Cheney himself.

So I am watching the Wyoming caucuses with more than passing interest.  By the way, the Clinton camp is “lowering expections.”  They couldn’t get much lower.  Obama is projected to be a big winner.  In the whitest state in the union.

Early returns from the caususes just posted by the AP show, “Obama led Clinton 57 percent to 40 percent with 6 of 23 counties reporting as they vied for the next prize in their extraordinarily tight Democratic presidential nomination race.”

The times, they are a changin’.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is finally uniting around Barack Obama as he narrows the national lead of Hillary Clinton just days before the Tsunami Tuesday vote. 

It hasn’t been easy.  Many activists on the party’s left have been skeptical of Obama despite his clear record of consistent opposition to the Iraq War and solid voting record.   They preferred Dennis Kucinich’s in-your-face radicalism or John Edwards’ frank appeal for economic populism.  Some distrusted Obama’s outreach to independents and Republicans, his willingness to respect and use the language of faith even if that faith was religiously liberal.  Others suspected that he might be an empty suit, too good to be true, an easy balm to white consciences who could then take a pass on the real work of battling racism.

As Kucinich and Edwards dropped out it became apparent that there was no other alternative to Clinton and her style of Democratic Leadership Council trimming, triangulation and a relentless drive to a center that moved every rightward.  But the progressive turn to Obama has been deeper, stronger, than simple resignation that he is “all we got” to stop Clinton.  Progressives have finally been swept up in the realization that Obama offers not just a punch card of liberal issues, but an inspiring vision of leadership that can unite the people behind real, lasting, and systematic change.

The Kennedy endorsement, while of critical importance in influencing many Democrats, probably held less sway over progressives except as an indication that Obama had a real chance to break out.  The most venerable of progressive publications, The Nation weighed the candidates closely, examining the plusses an minuses for both and gave its endorsement on Thursday to Obama on the strength of his uniting appeal.

Over at the Daily Kos, ground zero of the progressive blog phenomena, ther January 30 straw poll showed Obama leaping into a lead over Clinton 76 to 11% out of 17,995 respondents.  Now that’s a gathering of focus.

Meanwhile the Gallop Daily Tracking Poll  shows Obama closing to within four points of Clinton nationally just a head of last night California  head to head debate.  Its now Clinton 43%, Obama 39% with 9% still for Edwards.  Just two weeks ago Clinton enjoyed a twenty point edge.  These national polls are considered more reliable than the state wide polls that have proved so fallible in predicting primary outcomes.  The momentum is clearly on Obama’s side.  Is it enough to overcome Clinton’s earlier wide leads in California, Massachusetts, and New York? We shall see. 

Finaly, MoveOn.Org conducted its own head to head primary yesterday.  Obama won the MoveOn endorsement 70.4% to 24.6% with  280,528 voting.  The prize is far from simply symbolic.  MoveOn represents a dedicated and disciplined cadre of grass roots volunteers who have repeatedly shown their effectiveness.  Welded into Obama’s own grass root oriented campaign, they promise to bring thens of thousands of volunteers to phone banks, canvassing crews, and neighborhood coffees, plus additional fundraising punch.

Of course MoveOn is one of the right wing’s favorite whipping boys.  They will use the endorsement to try to demonize Obama as left wing and to try to drive a wedge between him and the independents and Republicans he courts. 

But if given the choice between MoveOn’s muscle and some flack from Bill O’Reily, I’ll take MoveOn every time.  So, I suspect will Senator Obama.

            HEIDI PRZYBYLA in a report for BLOOMBERG posted at TRUTHOUT.COM detailed how, despite HILARY CLINTON’s continued lead in national poll, BARACK OBAMA is the only DEMOCRATIC PARTY candidate who beats all REPUBLICAN contenders in head-to-head competition.

   Obama, an Illinois senator, is clearly the strongest general-election candidate. He is the only Democrat who beats all three major Republican contenders: Giuliani, McCain and Romney. Clinton runs behind all three Republican contenders in head-to-head match-ups.

Obama Versus Giuliani

    Obama also does better than any other Democrat among independent voters who will vote in the Democratic primary, who often are central to electoral success. Moreover, he has more appeal with some Republican voters. For example, 15 percent of Republicans say they would choose Obama in a head-to-head match- up against Giuliani, 63, a former New York City mayor. Just 3 percent of Republican respondents say they would pick Clinton in a similar contest.

    The poll shows other areas of strength for Obama. A majority of Democrats say they favor "a candidate who can bridge partisan divides" - a central theme of his campaign - over a candidate "with long experience in government and policy making," a cornerstone of Clinton's self-presentation. Independents voting in the Democratic primary say they favor unity over experience by more than 2-to-1.

Primary Voters

    In addition, 18 percent of Democratic primary voters say they couldn't vote for Clinton, the highest negative rating of any Democrat. Five percent say they couldn't vote for Obama.

    Obama is "a new breed and I think he can work with other people better than she can," said John Bryan, a 58-year-old retired budget analyst from Springfield, Illinois who favors Obama.

    Clinton still does better among core Democrats, according to the poll. While Obama is the first African-American to have a serious chance at winning the Democratic nomination, Clinton runs more than 2-to-1 ahead among minority voters. She also does much better with female voters than the other major candidates, though she isn't nearly as strong with males.

    Former Senator John Edwards, 54, who is in third place by a large margin behind the two Democratic frontrunners, has lost almost half his support since the last poll in April. Edwards stands at 8 percent, down from 14 percent two months ago.

            Obama is also once again expected to out fund raise the Clinton steamroller despite a heavy dependence on small independent voters.  Despite all of this, the usual suspects among main stream pundits and talking heads still act as if Clinton was inevitable.

            Me?  I think the Senator looks more and more like that guy standing behind him in the picture.