Goldy

Speaking of political campaigns making effective use of the Internet, the WA State Dems have put up a new web site of their own, The Real Rossi. I especially like this audio clip of Rossi, which I think pretty much sums up his entire campaign:

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/rossismile.mp3]

One of the fascinating things about this election cycle is the way the Internet is breaking the stranglehold of traditional political and media institutions. For example, we all knew that Hillary Clinton was a lock for the Democratic nomination because nobody could compete with her massive money machine… that is until Barack Obama used the Internet to go straight to the people, and set new fundraising records in the process.

The same is beginning to happen in terms of media coverage, with some wags referring to 2008 as the first “YouTube election.” The video above is a great example, generating nearly 400,000 views in its first 24-hours online; not quite the audience of a network news program, but damn impressive nonetheless. It begs the question how much longer the national media can stick to the “Straight Talk Express” narrative without damaging (further) their credibility?

Meanwhile the DNC is doing its part to help both voters and reporters discern truth from fiction with today’s launch of McCainPedia:

McCainpedia.org is a wiki run by the DNC’s Research, Communications, and Internet teams. The goal is to centralize research material, allowing the general public to use it as they see fit.

Opposition research is nothing new, but its product is traditionally aimed at journalists and opinion makers, who then regurgitate the tidbits they find most compelling, and in the context of their choosing. Campaign seasons are typically filled with swarms of press releases pushing one factoid or another, most of which never make it into the mainstream media narrative.

With McCainPedia, the DNC is both seeking to cut out the gatekeepers, while simultaneously giving them a tool to do their job better. Sure, this is a partisan site created by a partisan organization, but facts are facts, and each citation is thoroughly documented.

The legacy media may want to ignore these new developments, but they do so at their own peril.

State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz, a superdelegate to the national convention, has officially declared his support for Sen. Barack Obama. Following a theme we’ve seen throughout Obama’s recent flood of endorsements, Pelz writes:

Throughout this campaign, I have gained an enormous respect for Hillary Clinton. This country and this party are unquestionably far stronger for the contributions she’s made throughout this campaign and throughout her long career in public service. I will be eternally grateful for Sen. Clinton’s appearance at our awards dinner last year, as she was warmly welcomed by Washington State Democrats, and for the time she has spent campaigning in Washington state. I have no doubt that Sen. Clinton would be a tough, thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and supremely-prepared President of the United States.

At this point in time, however, I feel the voters have spoken, that Sen. Obama will be our nominee, and that it is time for us as Democrats to begin the final stretch of this historic 2008 campaign to take back America. It is time to unify our party around one candidate.

There was a point early on when Clinton led Obama five to one in WA superdelegates. Obama now leads seven to five, with five remaining. (Actually, it’s seven to four with five remaining, as Ron Sims isn’t technically part of WA’s superdelegate slate, earning his slot as president of the National Democratic County Officials. But why get technical?)

An estimated 75,000 rallied to hear Barack Obama speak in Portland today, just days before the Oregon primary.  Blue Oregon has video of the massive rally that gives a good feel for the size of the crowd.

Imagine John McCain drawing a crowd of this size.  Betcha can’t.

The official NRCC Blog doesn’t typically generate much of a conversation—a few comments here and there, maybe a dozen or so in a really active thread.  So perhaps NRCC chair Tom Cole might want to pay attention to the 1255 comments on his most recent post, “Republican Solutions and a Positive Agenda.“

And all of them negative. Really.  I’ve been browsing the thread for an hour and haven’t found a single supportive comment.

You want to watch the Republican meltdown in action, go read this thread.

… are you doing inside reading a blog on a beautiful day like today?  Go outside and get some exercise.

Now scram!

The Democrats aren’t the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they’re finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They’re busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They’re frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

That’s Peggy Noonan.  In the Wall Street Journal, for chissakes.  Mourning the death of her party.

At least one Republican isn’t in denial.

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

This is and will be the great challenge for John McCain: The Democratic argument, now being market tested by Obama Inc., that a McCain victory will yield nothing more or less than George Bush’s third term.

That is going to be powerful, and it is going to get out the vote. And not for Republicans.

Ouch.

I guess this is what passes for humor amongst the Guns & God wing of the Republican Party:

Ever wonder why there are so few Republican comedians? It’s because this is what passes for humor During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

One thing you can say about Huckabee, he sure knows how to play to an audience.

UPDATE:
Here’s the video:

Listen to the audience laugh.  Somebody aimed a gun at our first African American presidential nominee… oh man that’s funny, isn’t it?

I keep hearing about a hush-hush poll that’s been conducted, that bodes very well for a Sound Transit Phase 2 package, should one appear on the fall ballot. Hmm… I wonder if the popular support for transit has anything to do with this?

I’m not sure who conducted the poll, or what size the sample, but I’ve been assured by those who have seen it that it wasn’t a puff piece, and that it strongly tested the proposal’s negatives. (And by “negatives” I’m assuming they mean the price and the taxes.) This leads me to believe that it was probably conducted on behalf of folks weighing the risks of getting behind an ’08 ballot measure.

The US Senate voted last night to nullify an FCC rule that would have allowed media corporations to own both a newspaper and a television station in the same major market, no doubt warming the cockles of Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen, who lacks the deep pockets of the rival P-I’s corporate parent Hearst.

So I thought it a good time to remind Frank and his editorial board flunkies that this measure, adamantly opposed by the Bush administration, never would have gotten to the floor for a vote had the Republicans still controlled the Senate. Never.

See, the little letter in parentheses next to the name of the candidate really does matter. Perhaps the Times’ editors should keep this in mind the next time they’re tempted to base their endorsements solely on the issue of repealing the estate tax?

And keep in mind that Rasmussen is widely considered to be a Republican leaning pollster:

The re-election prospects for Washington Governor Christine Gregoire (D) have improved significantly over the past two months. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Washington voters shows Gregoire leading her Republican challenger, Dino Rossi, by eleven percentage points. It’s Gregoire 52% Rossi 41%.

What’s changed?  Largely it appears that the Democratic base is coming home to Gregoire, as one might expect as the election approaches.  But I’ll leave further analysis to Darryl.

FYI, Rasmussen also has Barack Obama opening up an 11-point lead over John McCain amongst WA voters.  Coincidence?