Almost 24 hours after the polls closed on March 4th, Barack Obama finally released his fundraising totals from the month of February. To no one’s surprise, he broke his own fundraising record in smashing fashion. The Clinton campaign had released their numbers a week earlier, and the $35 million she raised was impressive by any standard — except for that of Barack Obama. In the shortened month of February, he pulled in $55 million.
More than 80 percent of Obama’s donations were raised online ($45 million). More than 90 percent of the online donations were for $100 or less; more than half were for $25 or less. For a candidate in a party that not so long ago had very little in the way of a small donor base, that’s amazing.
727,972 people gave money to the Obama campaign in February. Of those, 385,101 were first-time contributors. At some point during the month, Obama broke another important milestone: his total number of contributors passed 1 million. As of last week, the number stood at 1,069,333 and counting
Micah Sifry is the one observer I’ve seen who put those numbers into context:

In 2004, when the total US population was about 296 million, the total number of donors giving $200 or more to all federal campaigns and committees–that is, to all presidential and congressional candidates, PACs and party committees–was 1,140,535, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That is, about .4% of the US population made a contribution of more than $200.
In 2000, when the total population was about 281 million, just 777,877 made a $200+ contribution, just over one-quarter of one-percent of the population.
Barack Obama’s campaign has already mobilized more individual donors than the entire large donor pool of 2000, and they are closing rapidly on the entire large donor pool of 2004. This is breathtaking.

As he notes later in the post, it’s not a completely fair comparison because 90 percent of Obama’s donors are giving less than $200. But still, one million contributors is an extraordinary number and an important one.
For starters, despite the overheated rhetoric from the McCain campaign and many in the mainstream media about Obama’s reluctance to commit in advance to public financing in the general election, his donor base represents “public financing” in the broader sense of the term: a million citizens supporting a candidate with whatever they can give, whenever they can afford it. That McCain — who has championed campaign finance reform — cannot accomplish something similar and must instead rely on the same old bundlers and corporate sources as the GOP campaigns of the past speaks volumes.
On the other side of the coin, Obama’s (and to a lesser extent, Clinton’s) small-donor success has the potential to move the Democratic party away from a need to rely on moneyed interests. Eight years ago, the Gore campaign worked the big dollar network extensively. Four years ago, Democrats pushed big money into 527s like America Coming Together in order to level the playing field with Bush. Now, that’s no longer necessary. It appears that for Democratic presidential campaigns in the future, money from big donors is just going to be gravy.
And the potential of electing a president who isn’t beholden to anyone but the citizens of the country could be a huge deal for our national political process.

The L.A. Times has an insightful article, “Democrats Seek to Strengthen Grip on Blue-Collar Workers” by Janet Hook and Tom Hamburger. The article addresses the relative strengths and weaknesses of both Senators Obama and Clinton in campaigning for blue collar votes in the context of McCain’s candidacy, and reports on new Labor and Democratic’ initiatives to solidify working class votes. The concern, in a nutshell:

The AFL-CIO became concerned after polls and focus groups found considerable willingness among union members to consider supporting McCain, regardless of which Democrat won the nomination…Looking toward the general election, labor strategists were alarmed by polls and focus groups of undecided union members that showed McCain doing well in match-ups with either Democratic candidate, said Karen Ackerman, political director of the AFL-CIO. But those focus groups also found that union members knew very little about McCain’s economic positions, including those the labor federation opposes.

The authors also quote John Edwards’s former campaign head David Bonior on the problem of white working class political drift in November:

“That vote is up for grabs,” said David Bonior, campaign manager for John Edwards’ failed Democratic presidential bid. “We will have to work incredibly hard,” he said, to blunt McCain’s potential appeal to working-class voters, which is based on his status as a war hero and his reputation as a political moderate….Bonior argued that Obama has had trouble winning that constituency — a problem he shares with past Democratic candidates John F. Kerry, Al Gore and Michael S. Dukakis

The Oregon AFL-CIO web page has three good companion pieces to the LA Times article, featuring some useful information for addressing the McCain problem. For example:

First elected to the Senate in 1986, McCain has a lifetime AFL-CIO rating of 17 percent through 2006. During the first session of the 110th congress, McCain voted with the AFL-CIO only 3 times out of 34 votes taken…He’s voted with the President 88 percent of the time.

The web page also points out that McCain voted against: extending temporary unemployment benefits; raising the minimum wage; overtime rights protection; the Federal Childrens’ Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). He’s voted for legislation that exports American jobs, promotes privatization and would provide permanent tax cuts for the wealthy. There is more than enough in McCain’s track record to stop him from winning support from working families — if the Dems and unions do a good enough job in publicizing it in blue collar America.

Usurprisingly, Barack Obama won yesterday’s presidential primary in Mississippi, by a healthy 61-37 margin. The win will glean him six net pledged delegates, and add to his cumulative popular vote lead (potentially a very big deal) by nearly 100,000.
Much is being made today of the racial breakdown in the MS vote. Nobody should have been surprised. MS, like SC and AL, is a state where racial polarization is a fundamental political reality. Obama has done relatively well among white voters in those southern states (GA and VA) where biracial coalitions are far more common. I suspect he’ll do pretty well among white voters in NC as well.
A couple of other exit poll findings are of interest. Despite the racial bent of the vote, age was also a big factor, with Obama’s success declining systematically up the age ladder. Fully 12 percent of the primary turnout was among self-identified Republicans, who went for HRC by more than a three-to-one margin; this undoubtedly added to the racial polarization of the overall results.
Now it’s on to the long, hard slog towards Pennsylvania on April 22.

It’s pretty clear that John McCain has a lot of strategic thinking to do. He’s won the GOP nomination, but not the trust of most “movement conservatives.” He’s doing well in most trial heats against Hillary Clinton and (less so) Barack Obama, but he’s fighting an underlying Democratic wave. He’s benefitting from the extended Democratic contest, but is in danger of becoming somewhat irrelevant, and also has serious financial issues. He enjoys a lot of positive media, but has nowhere to go but down in that dimension of presidential politics.
Naturally enough, there’s a whole cottage industry of speculation about what McCain might do with the largest symbolic token he can offer to his own party and to the electorate at large: his running-mate–an issue his age makes especially compelling.
We’ve reported here repeatedly on the standard-brand, white-bread conservative options McCain can consider. But there’s an enduring theory, as popular among fearful Democrats as among hopeful Republicans, that McCain will do something unpredictable, particularly if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. And this theory often centers on Condoleezza Rice.
The New Yorker‘s intrepid Hendrik Hertzberg offers the latest argument for a McCain-Condi ticket:

If McCain really wants to have it all—to refurbish his maverick image without having to flip-flop on the panderings that have tarnished it; to galvanize the attention of the press, the nation, and the world; to make a bold play for the center without seriously alienating “the base”—then he can avail himself of a highly interesting option: Condoleezza Rice.

Hertzberg makes some sense. But the case he makes applies a whole lot more to another Hail Mary possibility, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Like Condi, Bobby’s non-white and crazy smart. Like Condi, he represents a great American up-from-adversity story. But unlike Condi, Bobby Jindal is simon-pure on every imaginable conservative litmus test–particularly tests associated with the Christian Right–and has the blend of federal and state experience, along with youth, that a McCain ticket needs.
The only real arguments I’ve heard against Bobby as McCain’s running-mate are that he’s so young he’d show up his boss’s age, and that many Americans would think he’s a Muslim (he’s actually a Catholic convert from Hinduism) or would identify him with the smart kids from the Indian Subcontinent who are allegedly hoovering up so many U.S. service industry jobs.
Well, sure, if McCain is not inclined to take risks, Jindal won’t be considered for the ticket, but nor will Condi Rice. There are plenty of conventionally conservative white men available, and he’ll probably pick one.
But I’d be surprised if Bobby Jindal doesn’t make the ultimate short list, and might actually be considered if the GOP goes into the general election on a wing and a prayer.

That chortling you hear off in the distance is the sound of Republicans gloating that a prominent Democratic Governor, who was a dogged fighter against corporate corruption, has been tainted by a sexual scandal. The GOP will trumpet their outrage until everyone is sick of hearing about it, demanding Spitzer’s resignation, while shrugging off the sexual scandals of Senators Craig and Vitter. Their strategy is clear — to prolong the controversy and hope the ill will generated will be extended to other Democratic candidates.
According to the latest New York Times coverage, it is still unclear what Governor Spitzer intends to do and when he intends to do it. In the best case scenarios, Governor Spitzer’s problems won’t have much effect on the ’08 elections. If he resigns with a minimum of fanfare, no Democratic candidate, from president to school board, will lose many votes because of it. There is some concern among NY Dems that it could have an adverse effect on their hopes to reverse the GOP’s one-vote majority in the NY state senate. Lt. Governor David Patterson, a strong Democrat, is ready to assume the governorship if Spitzer resigns. In terms of presidential politics, Spitzer’s problems will likely have more effect on ’12, or ’16, when he might have tested the presidential primaries.
If Spitzer does resign, the more alert members of the msm may ask the GOP why Vitter and Craig are still in office, pointing out the double standard in their highly selective outrage — Vitter, who was also implicated in a scandal with prostitutes, reportedly received a “loud standing ovation” from some of his GOP colleagues at a luncheon following his admission that he “sinned.”

Presidential campaign staff and advisors have certainly been in the news in recent days. Barack Obama’s campaign has been afflicted for two weeks now by heavy media coverage of supposed gaffes by three top advisors: economist Austan Goolsbee and foreign policy wonks Samantha Power and Susan Rice. And reports of vicious infighting in Hillary Clinton’s campaign have long become a staple of political coverage, as illustrated by a front-page piece in today’s New York Times.
Invariably, these “gaffe” and “turmoil” stories, viewed as reflecting poor campaign management, lead to speculation about or even demands for (as in the case of Power) firings. Throwing an aide or advisor “under the bus” to resolve conflicts, control damage, or signal a change of direction, is an ancient ritual in electoral politics, particularly at the presidential level.
Sometimes staff firings or “shakeups” do indeed reflect major strategic considerations. Famous examples include Ronald Reagan’s dismissal of long-time chief strategist John Sears in 1980 after a potentially calamitous loss in the Iowa Caucuses; Al Gore’s “purge” of Mark Penn and other Clinton veterans during the 2000 primaries as a first step towards declaring Gore’s independence; John Kerry’s decision to side with Bob Shrum in a factional fight in 2003, which led to the resignation of Jim Jordan as campaign manager and a slow exodus of some anti-Shrum staffers; and most recently, the 2007 shakeup in John McCain’s campaign, wherein long-time strategist John Weaver hit the bricks.
“Gaffe”- or scandal-related firings haven’t been unusual, either. There was John Sasso’s departure as Michael Dukakis campaign manager in 1988, after Sasso was implicated in the leak of the Biden “plagiarism” story (Sasso returned to the campaign during the general election). And then you had Dick Morris leaving the Clinton re-election campaign in 1996 when the famous toe-sucking incident surfaced. There’s even a direct analog to the Goolsbee “NAFTA-Gate” saga: during the 1992 primaries, Clinton economic advisor Rob Shapiro was (temporarily) excluded from the campaign after Bob Kerrey attacked a New Republic article by Shapiro that in passing appeared to disrespect farm subsidies.
Finally, there’s another hoary convention wherein struggling presidential candidates bring in “senior advisors” to supply alleged adult supervision to faction-torn or disorganized campaign staffs. In a nice twist of fate, this role in John Kerry’s campaign was fulfilled by none other than John Sasso. And in the mini-shakeup that followed the departure of Patti Solis Doyle as campaign manager, HRC’s current campaign brought in Clinton White House political advisers Doug Sosnik and Steve Richitti.
So: there’s plenty of precedent for staff gaffes, turmoil, firings and shakeups, and plenty of evidence that they also mean a lot less than meets the eye. It’s human nature that political writers have a powerful attraction to this kind of story, with all its insider glamor. But it’s important not to confuse cause with effect, and staff or adviser shuffling with the fundamentals of any campaign. Sometimes they matter a lot, but not often.

For all those Democrats worried to distraction about the tone and duration of the Clinton-Obama contest, there was a timely reminder in Illinois over the weekend of the fundamental advantage Democrats may enjoy in November. In a special election to replace former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Democrat Bill Foster won a solid victory over Republican Jim Oberweis, a self-funding candidate who also benefitted from a million dollars in RNC expenditures (roughly a third of the national committee’s cash-on-hand).
This is a strongly though not overwhelmingly Republican district won ten times by Hastert, and carried by Bush with 55% of the vote in 2004. Foster ran about ten percent ahead of John Kerry’s 2004 performance there.
You can read about the special election at just about every site in the progressive blogosphere. But you might also want to check out John Fund’s assessment in the Wall Street Journal today, which suggests the results might well be a November harbinger similar to those of special congressional elections prior to the “wave” elections of 1974 and 1994.

It’s not much of a secret that if Democratic primary and caucus participants don’t, as appears almost certain, give any candidate the delegates he or she needs to win the presidential nomination without superdelegates, there will be a big battle over the question of whether superdelegates should be truly free to express their preferences, or should defer to the “will of the people.”
While Hillary Clinton’s campaign has officially argued for the former, “free will” interpretation of the superdelegate role, it’s doubtful that position will be politically tenable if the “will of the people” clearly favors Barack Obama.
But ah, there’s the rub. How does one measure the “will of the people?” Pledged delegates? The popular vote by state? The popular vote by congressional district? Or the total national popular vote?
Over at DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas does a useful estimate of how superdelegates would, roughly, break if they vote according to the primary or caucus winner of the state to which they are assigned. Turns out they wouldn’t help HRC much if at all.
But is that the right measurement of the “popular will?” Who knows?
I agree with Markos that the only “popular will” measurement that HRC has a decent if uphill chance to win is the total popular vote. That measurement is complicated, not only because of the Michigan/Florida problem, but also because some caucus states (typically won by Obama) have not reported their actual raw vote.
But I don’t agree with him that the burden of proof for HRC is to establish that she’s the “people’s choice” that all superdelegates should be constrained to support. Her goal is to cast just enough doubt on the “popular will”–i.e., the results of the entire nominating process up until the convention–that superdelegates will feel morally and politically empowered to choose on different criteria, such as general election strength. It all the votes are perceived as adding up to a tie, then complicated schemes for “binding” superdelegates may amount to nothing, particularly since some of them (e.g., Virginia superdelegate Terry McAuliffe, whose district and state went for Obama) ain’t budging and there’s no mechanism for actually enforcing popular-will obeisance, even if advocates for that approach could agree on the right measurement. And for the same reasons, I wouldn’t expect the two campaigns to argue for any particular “binding” theory, which could produce perverse results if one candidate’s “supers” complied and the other one’s didn’t.
There’s an interesting discussion of this general issue up on the New Republic site between Jon Chait and Jon Cohn, but it’s more about the theory of superdelegate independence than the question of how to limit it.
Meanwhile, also at TNR, Michelle Cottle has a post about the awful but increasingly realistic specter of small groups of superdelegates peddling their votes for parochial interests.
None of this is going to be easy or clear, folks, unless one candidate or another gains massive momentum in the rest of the primaries and caucuses. Without question, Barack Obama still has the clear advantage, but it could get crazy down the stretch.

My post yesterday suggested that a lot of the negative posturing over a “re-do” plan for Democratic delegate selection in Michigan and Florida was just Kabuki Theater formalism that hid a powerful momentum towards a compromise solution. But June Kronholz has a good article up for the Wall Street Journal today that explains why it may just not happen.
She reports that Michigan Democrats seem to be pulling back from a reported decision to go ahead with a “firehouse caucus,” mainly on cost grounds (though such caucuses are relatively inexpensive). And HRC’s campaign also appears to have gone back to its pre-March 4 “seat them all” position, after briefly hinting at support for a do-over.
Complicating the whole thing is the fact that many of the decision-makers on the ground in MI and FL are backing a candidate (typically HRC), and won’t make a move without the high sign from their champion. And then in FL, a genuine state primary “do-over” would require cooperation from Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and Republican legislative leaders, who are unlikely to go along with any plan that involves significant costs for the state itself.
Kronholz also alludes to another solution: doing what the Republicans did with Florida, and letting the results stand but reducing the number of delegates. That would avoid the “do-over,” but it doesn’t deal with the unique MI problem, where Obama wasn’t on the ballot and would get skunked in pledged delegates. So maybe one possibility is a firehouse caucus do-over in MI, and then a reduced delegate seating in FL. This might be tempting to HRC, since it would leave in place her large popular vote margin in FL. If by the end of the nominating process she’s passed Obama in the total popular vote, that would give her an argument that Obama’s almost certain lead in pledged delegates should be disregarded by superdelegates. But any solution that’s tempting to HRC might well be rejected by Obama on mirror-image grounds.
Aside from Howard Dean’s deal-making and arm-twisting ability, the real issue may be if the two campaigns are willing to live with the default “solution:”

If neither state comes up with a new delegate-selection plan by mid-June, the issue will be tossed to the party’s credentials committee. But a resolution there seems likely to continue the stalemate: The committee will have about the same proportion of Obama and Clinton supporters as the convention does.
In any event, credentials-committee decisions must be ratified by the entire convention, which could result in a televised floor fight and a public-relations nightmare for the party.

Moreover, not to be a broken record about this, but leaving FL and MI to be resolved at the convention itself also means that no candidate will be in charge of convention planning. And that’s a recipe for some real excitement, to be sure, but also chaos.

Democratic oppo researchers should clip Maeve Reston’s La Times article “McCain’s team forged loyalty in collapse,” a revealing profile of the inner circle of Team McCain. Reston’s article focuses on “The Sedona Five,” key McCain insiders Rick Davis, Mark Salter, Charles Black, Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon, who shaped and implemented McCain’s nomination-winning strategy at a time when most pundits believed he was toast. Reston provides this succinct description of the group:

Davis, a calm and efficient lobbyist who impressed everyone with his budgeting skills, manned the northern Virginia headquarters. Salter, 53, who in his younger days spent four years as an Iowa spiker laying railroad tracks before becoming McCain’s speechwriter, was most often at McCain’s side.
Black, a lobbyist who initially signed on as debate coach, was drafted onto the Straight Talk Express bus by McCain as his tactician and, at 60, as the “wise elder of the group.” Schmidt, 37, a strategist who ran the 2004 Bush campaign war room, and McKinnon, a one-time songwriter who served as media strategist for President Bush’s White House campaigns, parachuted in from their respective bases in California and Austin.

Reston rolls out an illuminating account of McCain’s comeback and image-tweaking, as told from the inside. Her article also has some interesting detail about the McCain campaign’s ad-buying strategy and McCain’s trust of the ‘Sedonas,’ apparently well-placed.