Sen. Barack Obama continued his mastery of the south, an area with many African American Democrats, winning 59% of the vote yesterday. His support among Blacks is strong and there are no more dissenters complaining he isn't "Black" enough. He has won over this important Democratic demographic and young people are especially motivated by his message.
As I'm driving around Pennsylvania, eating in restaurants, staying in hotels, attending events I'm watching, listening and speaking to people discuss the race. It's becoming the main topic everywhere. I observed a typical Hillary supporter, a 60'ish woman, talking up her candidate and dissing Sen. Obama to another table of three young people who politely tried ignoring her constant trashing of their guy.
I spoke to a woman upstate who is an Obama supporter and one who is supporting Clinton. Both cited strong preferences and are excited by the race. People at Hillary's event in Scranton were a mix of committed voters and undecideds. I saw one man enter the event with buttons on for each candidate. Polls are showing 20% undecideds and a lot of soft support for each candidate. It appears Pennsylvania is up for grabs.
The Obama delegate lead continues to be around 100 and we're the only primary between today and April 22nd. I'll cover as much of this as I can, for both camps if possible. I am not going to drive around to Obama campaign events, however, if I cannot get press credentials and entry. I can't afford all that gas.
First off, let me say that I'm a new reader to your blog and I came here to get the ground level view of PA politics, and I haven't been disappointed. Keep up the good work.
That said, you say in this post: "I am not going to drive around to Obama campaign events, however, if I cannot get press credentials and entry." This echoes comments you've made before about the Obama campaign not reaching out to you or giving you credentials. Bad on them for burning bridges if that's the case.
But I wonder if your status as an advisor for Berks County for Hillary makes the Obama campaign leery of treating you like a member of the press. Although we know that reporters/bloggers/everybody has their biases, most reporter types try not to have conflicts of interest, and working for Hillary and covering Obama would seem to be a conflict of interest. Not that you couldn't or wouldn't be fair to Obama or his campaign, but given the increasingly nasty nature of the contest, it doesn't surprise me that they aren't treating you as a member of the press.
Just my 2 cents.
Posted by: Josh | March 12, 2008 at 06:02 PM
My contacts and overtures to the Obama campaign predated any potential involvement for Hillary. Even after that I sought local Obama events to cover. I have no problem separating the consulting from the blogging. I'd love to be able to sit in the press section and take video clips of Sen. Obama to post immediately to this blog. I have no problem publishing their schedules of events. People are looking for this info, I'm seeing their search terms in my site traffic reports, I'd be happy to provide it for all. I simply don't have time to go searching for it.
Posted by: John Morgan | March 12, 2008 at 06:24 PM
There are and have been groups working for Obama in PA. These grassroots efforts can be seen at:
http://pennsylvaniaforchange.wordpress.com
Posted by: Cats r Flyfishn | March 13, 2008 at 09:29 AM