A quick eyeball of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s campaign schedule for Barack Obama makes the strategy pretty clear: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, N.M.; Santa Fe Community ...

The place for California supporters to share information and promote Barack Obama ... Use this image to help promote Obama in your blog , myspace, etc... Here's the code:

Not much is predictable in the wild next few days, but Angelenos can almost take it to the bank that they will see Hillary Clinton standing next to California's A-list Latino ...

I attend an Obama rally at the University of California, Los Angeles, and receive a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) flyer with 77 names, addresses, and phone numbers of registered ...

The following piece is published on Pop and Politics as well as HuffPost's OffTheBus . Twenty-four years ago, San Francisco hosted the Democratic National Convention.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a commanding lead among Latinos and women in California, but 1 in 5 voters is still undecided with the state's Feb. 5 primary just two ...

... denne valgkamp, og det er i overvejende grad demokraterne og Barack Obama, som høster gevinsten," siger Jaime Regalado, professor på Pat Brown Institute på California State ...

Maria Shriver endorses Obama | LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- California first lady Maria Shriver on Sunday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president ...

NEW YORK (CBS News) ― Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton sparred, for the most part cordially, over immigration, health care and the war in Iraq in their first one ...

Round one to Barack Obama, round two to Hillary Clinton, and just like that the retail politics is over, and the national slugfest begins. Obama and Clinton spent more than a year ...

A quick eyeball of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s campaign schedule for Barack Obama makes the strategy pretty clear: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, N.M.; Santa Fe Community ...

The place for California supporters to share information and promote Barack Obama ... Use this image to help promote Obama in your blog , myspace, etc... Here's the code:

Not much is predictable in the wild next few days, but Angelenos can almost take it to the bank that they will see Hillary Clinton standing next to California's A-list Latino ...

I attend an Obama rally at the University of California, Los Angeles, and receive a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) flyer with 77 names, addresses, and phone numbers of registered ...

The following piece is published on Pop and Politics as well as HuffPost's OffTheBus . Twenty-four years ago, San Francisco hosted the Democratic National Convention.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a commanding lead among Latinos and women in California, but 1 in 5 voters is still undecided with the state's Feb. 5 primary just two ...

... denne valgkamp, og det er i overvejende grad demokraterne og Barack Obama, som høster gevinsten," siger Jaime Regalado, professor på Pat Brown Institute på California State ...

Maria Shriver endorses Obama | LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- California first lady Maria Shriver on Sunday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president ...

NEW YORK (CBS News) ― Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton sparred, for the most part cordially, over immigration, health care and the war in Iraq in their first one ...

Round one to Barack Obama, round two to Hillary Clinton, and just like that the retail politics is over, and the national slugfest begins. Obama and Clinton spent more than a year ...

A quick eyeball of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s campaign schedule for Barack Obama makes the strategy pretty clear: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, N.M.; Santa Fe Community ...

The place for California supporters to share information and promote Barack Obama ... Use this image to help promote Obama in your blog , myspace, etc... Here's the code:

Not much is predictable in the wild next few days, but Angelenos can almost take it to the bank that they will see Hillary Clinton standing next to California's A-list Latino ...

I attend an Obama rally at the University of California, Los Angeles, and receive a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) flyer with 77 names, addresses, and phone numbers of registered ...

The following piece is published on Pop and Politics as well as HuffPost's OffTheBus . Twenty-four years ago, San Francisco hosted the Democratic National Convention.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a commanding lead among Latinos and women in California, but 1 in 5 voters is still undecided with the state's Feb. 5 primary just two ...

... denne valgkamp, og det er i overvejende grad demokraterne og Barack Obama, som høster gevinsten," siger Jaime Regalado, professor på Pat Brown Institute på California State ...

Maria Shriver endorses Obama | LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- California first lady Maria Shriver on Sunday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president ...

NEW YORK (CBS News) ― Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton sparred, for the most part cordially, over immigration, health care and the war in Iraq in their first one ...

Round one to Barack Obama, round two to Hillary Clinton, and just like that the retail politics is over, and the national slugfest begins. Obama and Clinton spent more than a year ...

Anyone that reads this blog knows that I am pulling for Barack Obama and that I have low personal regard for Mrs. and Mr. Clinton. So yeah I am biased. But Obama won the night tonight by every available measure. Chuck Todd on MSNBC has done the national delegate estimate (using the most optimistic Clinton campaign projections for California) and got: Obama 841 Clinton 837. It will probably be a slightly larger lead for Obama but not more than 15-20 additional delegates. Obama didn't just win the delegate battle he...

It looks like Obama is taking most of the caucus states and Clinton most of the direct vote states. The reason appears to be Obama's volunteer corp he has a lot more volunteers they seem to be at every caucus and to outnumber Clinton's substantially. Caucuses are very influenceable. After Nevada there were a lot of complaints from Obama supporters about Clinton volunteers and organizers. I suspect we may see the same thing tomorrow but the other way around. Whether the ground game will be enough for Obama remains to be seen. The state that matters most is California and it isn't a caucus state. 11:56 Looks like Clinton will win this overall to me. New York and California are the big boys and she's doing well in delegate count in both of them. 3 AM Seems I was wrong. Slight lead to Obama with Clinton maintaining her overall lead in delegates only due to super delegates who are notoriously fickle.

Here it is: the Super Tuesday Open Thread. Post results taunts but play nice and anything else you can think of relating to Super Tuesday in this thread. Huckabee winds WV Hate to say this but maybe it'll be food for thought in this thread but I'm leaning towards supporting Hillary at this point. (Yeah I know and my nose is firmly pinched.) Who would you prefer at this point? Update 6:12 PM Central: Update 6:57 PM Central: Update 7:21 PM Central: 'A.P. Projects Winners: Obama in Ill.; Clinton in Okla.; McCain in N.J. Ill. and Conn.; Romney in Mass.' 11:56 (Ian) Looks like Clinton will win this overall to me. New York and California are the big boys and she's doing well in delegate count in both of them. 3 AM (Ian) Seems I was wrong. Slight lead to Obama with Clinton maintaining her overall lead in delegates only due to super delegates who are notoriously fickle. Not final will depend on CA.

'Obama surging to lead ' said the pre-election media polls and headlines. 'Dead heat ' declared a few other national media sources. On the GOP side there were several polls alleging not...

didn't work so well. It's Clinton in a relative landslide here in California. The overall race today is advantage - somewhat - Clinton. This presents a host of pretty interesting problems. summarized one serious one - which is that Hillary's institutional advantage with the Party machinery will play strongly to her advantage in getting the nomination leaving the Obama fans who are serious about change feeling somewhat out in the cold. The structure of Hillary's victories tonight - winning big in the bluest of blue states and losing in the states that might be a tossup - emphasize her weakness as a general election candidate. Again - how is it in the face of an unpopular war and a much-derided Administration - that the Democrats risk losing? I have of course some ideas...

It's Super Tuesday; voters here in California and 23 other states will go to the polls to select candidates in their parties' primaries. I'm convinced that the damage that the Republican administration has done to this country will take a...

February 4 2008 Via PRNewswire-USNewswire New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton leads Illinois Senator Barack Obama 60% to 18% in California 77% to 15% in New York and 52% to 26% in Illinois based on the results of a new...

By David Roberts OK well ... here we go! Consider this the Super Tuesday catch-all thread share your news opinions brickbats and whatnot in comments. Obama kicks things off with a . UPDATE: Obama Delaware and Illinois. Clinton Arkansas Tennessee Massachusetts New York and New Jersey. McCain's Delaware Connecticut Illinois and New Jersey. Romney's won Massachusetts and Huckabee somewhat to the pundits' surprise is kicking a little ass in the South taking Arkansas Alabama and West Virginia. The story thus far as far as I can tell: McCain's still the presumptive favorite but not doing nearly as well as people thought. Huckabee is his secret weapon siphoning conservative votes from Romney. Clinton is doing extremely well taking the Mass. and NY prizes despite late Obama surges. UPDATE: The latest via : CLINTON: AR MA NJ NY OK TN OBAMA: AL CT DE GA KS IL MN ND UT HUCKABEE: AR AL WV MCCAIN: CT DE IL NJ NY OK ROMNEY: MA UT The Mass. loss was a real blow to Obama. I think he's going to fall short of the hype and lose a little momentum. Calif. is huge huge huge and I hear Latinos are going heavily to Clinton so things don't look good for him there either. Big night for Clinton. Also holy crap Huckabee just won Georgia. He is blowing away expectations. Can you say VP? UPDATE: Clinton takes Arizona another blow to Obama. Looks like the delegate count is going to be fairly close. It all comes down to California. UPDATE: They're calling California for Clinton. NPR says Clinton is about 20 delegates ahead of Obama that's close. Also: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is a superdelegate; she pledged to vote for whoever won Calif. so she's voting for Clinton. UPDATE: The Mittster picked up a run of late states ND MT UT but McCain picked up Calif. so it still seems like he's the prohibitive candidate. UPDATE: they called Missouri wrong Obama is in fact the winner. UPDATE: Just noticed that Clinton called out beating the "climate crisis" in her (strong) speech tonight. UPDATE: Alaska goes to Obama. As did it turns out . I can't find a definitive delegate count but there are rumors around that Obama might even have a lead. UPDATE: Sounds like in the next few days. UPDATE: The popular vote on the Dem side was incredibly close something like 49% to 48%. The race is a dead heat. has an insightful look at where the race goes from here.

Conversion Stories by digby As we all wait for the returns today from what is undoubtedly the most exciting nail biter of a Super Tuesday ever I thought I'd offer up some articles I've come across about how the candidates do what they do. If Barack Obama wins in California today : In a storefront on Q Street in Sacramento Kim Mack told a crowd that spilled out onto the sidewalk how she came to back Barack Obama. With a son serving in the Iraq war which she opposed Mack was looking for a like-minded presidential candidate. She was impressed by the Illinois senator's books. But the clincher came on March 17 when she met the Democratic contender face to face. She describes how he lit up the room with his wide smile shook her hand and thanked her for volunteering. Click here to find out more! "He looked at me and the look in his eyes was worth 1 000 words " said Mack now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear ??? she was so thrilled she doesn't remember what it was. Then Mack brought home the point of her story for the crowd of 100 or so eager volunteers sipping coffee and watching a PowerPoint presentation in the Obama campaign office on a recent Saturday. "Did that make more impact on you than if I had talked about his health care plan or his stance on the environment?" she asked. On the verge of a hectic few weeks leading to Super Tuesday the crucial Feb. 5 multistate primary including California's Mack wanted to drill home one of the campaign's key strategies: telling potential voters personal stories of political conversion. She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama ??? something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone. "Work on that refine that say it in the mirror " she said. "Get it down." She told the volunteers that potential voters would no doubt confront them with policy questions. Mack's direction: Don't go there. Refer them to Obama's Web site which includes enough material to sate any wonk. The idea behind the personal narratives is to reclaim "values" politics from the Republican Party said Marshall Ganz a one-time labor organizer for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers who developed "Camp Obama" training sessions for volunteers. When people tell their stories of how they made choices and what motivates them they communicate their values Ganz said in an interview. "Values are not just concepts they're feelings " Ganz said. "That's what dropped out of Democratic politics sometime in the '70s or '80s." To convey these values the Obama campaign claims to be taking grass-roots organizing to a new level harnessing what they describe as a groundswell of enthusiasm. In California the campaign claims that 120 000 people have shown an interest in working for Obama. Seven thousand of those are actively involved putting in five hours to 80 hours a week. The campaign boasts 223 official organizing teams in all of the state's 53 congressional districts and 700 community groups. Sacramento's was one of the first and is also one of the most active. Statewide 3 527 people trained as precinct captains oversee phone banking and canvassing door to door in precincts that generally include about 300 registered Democrats. [...] "Just follow Barack's lead and be honest with them " the Web site advises. "You don't need to debate policy or discuss the day's headlines. You have a very personal reason for investing your time and energy in this campaign ??? that is the most compelling story you can tell." Indeed participants in the Saturday morning precinct-captain training were already adept at telling their Obama-conversion stories. Libbie Coleman a 61-year-old microbiology teacher at McClatchy High School read Obama's books last spring. "I've been a voter for 40 years " she said. "I feel like I've been needing to hear these things for 40 years." Faced with a politician who spoke to her heart Coleman said she had no choice but to become involved for the first time in a political campaign. If Clinton wins A little after 9:00 PM in one nightly reporting meeting I witnessed regional field director Ryan Donohue started with three questions for all his organizers: "Did you have a Caucus 101 meeting today?" "How many people were you expecting to show up?" "How many people did you actually have?" In the case of a discrepancy organizers were asked to explain what happened. There was the feeling that it was better to have a small number of volunteers and to have predicted turn out correctly than to have a big unexpected turnout. In other words as an organizer this campaign expected you to be in control. The walls of Donahue's team office were covered with overlapping charts and lists of staff their precinct captains and other measures of their progress. But no numbers were put on the wall without a discussion of how they were achieved and the lessons to be learned from the experience. In these nightly reporting sessions regional directors went beyond mere numbers to debrief every conversation the organizers held that day with potential campaign workers as well as detailed plans for future recruitment voter ID persuasion and organization building. Each reporting session included good-natured self-critique and group-critique of team members' day-to-day efforts both successful and unsuccessful. All meetings closed with a "role play" in which one organizer was called upon to lead a mock volunteer house meeting (the mainstay organizing tool of the campaign). The role plays too were followed by self- and group-critique. After organizers had given their reports they went to work inputing data from the day's work into "The Donkey " a new online volunteer management system. Regional directors then gathered in another room to report their teams' results to the statewide field director Marlon Marshall followed by the same process of self- and group-critique and evaluation. In one of these upper-level meetings I visited word was handed down by Marshall of new internal polls showing Obama surging in Nevada. And rumor had it that all bets were off even in Iowa. No more inevitability. And intelligence about the Obama campaign pointed to massive turnout on their part. Things are getting tougher Marshall explained to his bleary-eyed regional directors that the vote goals for all precincts therefore had to be revised. In other words the goal post for all organizers had suddenly moved much father away. The regional field directors looked to be in various states of anxiety. But there was no sense of depression or despair. They were part of a well functioning organization. They knew the next step. They knew exactly what they had to do the next day because they had just detailed their plan to their field director in the meeting. Finally getting close to 11:00 PM Marshall would then report the progress of the past 24 hours in detail to state director Mook. Through that repetition of work accountability reflection and change an organization was being built to accomplish a goal: victory in the Nevada Caucus on January 19. That repetition was taking place within a grand strategy that though changing along with the conditions of the race was understood by all staff and even all volunteers. Mook sees that kind of big-picture strategic understanding as essential for everyone from regional field organizers down to precinct captains: "If I train someone and hold them accountable for delivering overall goals in a precinct they're going to work a lot harder than if I just say 'Go find 3 supporters and then come back to me.' If I say 'You're accountable for winning " then they're going to do whatever it takes. And also as the definition of what it's going to take to win changes over the course of the campaign they're going to be able to adapt to that." Even as the clock struck midnight staff were still buzzing around the office in a mixture of calm efficiency and adrenalin rush as the news of the new tough reality spread among the staff. Mook and Marshall are naturally good managers. And they work at being good managers. They see it as a major ingredient to winning something that makes campaigns work. "I've worked for Robby before and he sets a tone of being accountable not just in terms of numbers but also your work ethic and how your treat people and how you run an organization. It comes out of asking a lot of people but respecting people too " caucus director Mara Lee told me. "Here people are asked to do what they can do and a little bit more. The nice thing is that organizers know they can go to their regionals. Regionals know they can go to Robby or myself or Marlon. So it's not just a matter of reporting up there's actually a two way conversation. Sure it's hierarchical because it's an organization. But everyone is helping each other to succeed." I asked Ryan Donohue if the level of detail expected in daily reporting seemed excessive. "At first yes " he said. "But now I realize it might actually be a little under." I assume that both campaigns feature pieces of each of those approaches but this shows an interesting contrast that I think may illustrate what their supporters are attracted to in their chosen candidates. Inspiration vs perspiration. Broad strokes vs wonky details. Pick your poison. .

The campaigns are in full spin mode touting their victories tonight which is to be expected. But it is hard for me to see this as anything but a big night for Barack Obama. Or as Markos put it a Obama won 13 states to Clinton's 8 victories (New Mexico is still to be decided). Obama will probably end up winning a few more delegates tonight than Hillary. NBC's Chuck Todd Obama will secure 841 delegates to Clinton's 837 delegates. Almost a split decision but he's still ahead. Worse for Hillary and has for some time. Stretching out the calendar only helps Obama. He has been steadily catching up to Hillary in state after state poll after poll that's why so many of today's states were actually in play tonight when most weren't just a couple weeks ago. He has more money than Hillary. And after tonight even more money will pour into the Obama campaign. Obama outraised Clinton by almost 3 to 1 in January. And the upcoming election calendar favors Obama. There are several caucuses this weekend including Washington and Maine. Next week is the so-called Chesapeake primary (DC MD and VA). Obama is expected to do well in all of them. Hillary Clinton had some big wins tonight to be sure but they were in states she was always expected to win. As Markos noted tonight: "She didn't exceed expectations anywhere. She lost states she led big in just a few weeks ago." (Hillary was recently ahead in and Minnesota and then lost them all today. And she won California and Massachusetts but she was always ahead in those states (see and ).) And in any case she failed to deal Obama a knock-out blow. Even worse she lost to him in terms of the number of states won and it looks like she may lose to him in terms of total delegates won. As with every campaign we have to deal with the reality of where things stand today. But sometimes it does help to take a step back. Obama was practically unknown as a serious contender a year ago. He was running against the vaunted inevitable Clinton machine. Last year it was the conventional wisdom we all agreed that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee and the race would be wrapped up on Super Tuesday. That didn't happen. Her aura of invincibility is gone. Her inevitability is gone. She's now having to accept debates on Fox News (something she swore off of last year) in the hopes of generating momentum and getting some free air time (because she can't afford much more paid media). That says she's worried. As did her claim of victory in Florida last week a non-primary where no one campaigned (well almost no one) and where there were no delegates at stake. Hillary Clinton is a formidable candidate. If she gets the nomination she'll be a terrific president and we'll heartily support her. But today I think the tide turned against her. She was supposed to win today the nomination was supposed to be hers. She didn't and it isn't. It was a much better day to be Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton.