http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGvQHli1OoI
This is my response to Barack Obama on Jay Leno's show

PIMP MY EXXON

MUSIC IS OUR OIL TO HOST PRESS CONFERENCE AND FREE CONCERT AT ROCK & ROLL EXXON ON OCTOBER 11TH 2008 TO ANNOUNCE THE "MUSIC IS OUR OIL" WORLD TOUR CONCERT/FILM

Exxon will give Philadelphia's Free Gas, A FREE Concert, and the opportunity to meet Barack Obama.

Tonight, AFL-CIO Leader Tells You How

For years the Democratic Party lost ground among working-class, white, males. These voters make up more than half of the electorate and many political scientists believe that the appeal of social conservative issues by the Republicans has helped convince them to vote against their own economic self-interest.

The Wall Street Journal reports today though, that an AFL-CIO effort called Working America, combined with the Obama 50 state strategy may have shifted enough of these voters into the blue column to turn the tide….

On Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 5:30 pm Jonathan Hiatt, the General Council for the AFL-CIO will address a small group of labor lawyers, unionists and law students about this critical election and what comes after November 4. Mr Hiatt will discuss topics such as the Employee Free Choice Act, the election, immigration and the Wall Street credit problems.

This event is a great place to mingle with leaders in the field of law, politics and labor. The event which is hosted by Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez will be in the City Hall Caucus Room, Room #400. Snacks and refreshments will be served. Tickets are $50 but call for low-income and student tickets that as affordable as $20. Space is extremely limited so be sure to reserve your ticket today by calling Fabricio at Jobs with Justice at 215-670-5855. A portion of the proceeds from this event will go to support Jobs with Justice.

The Daily News reports today that Obama is up 45-38 in Registered voters in PA. (The one concern I have about this poll is that it seems to have been out in the field for 6 days, which is pretty abnormal.) And Quinnipac conducted a poll before and after the first debate. Before the first debate, Obama was up 6. After the debate, Obama was up.... 15!

After seeing the race tighten in PA, it appears that Obama is reestablishing his lead. Pollster.com has not added the poll yet to its average, but Real Clear Politics has, and in their poll of polls from September 21st through today, Obama is up by an average of 7.7 points. The best political forecasting site ever- Five Thirty Eight- has Obama winning PA 86% of the time.

Additionally, in a development that could have long term implications, Obama continues to turn the PA suburbs blue. Remember after the PA Primary, when the PA GOP said that the Dem gains in registration were all because of the primary, and that people would switch back?

Ruh-Roh:

Both Montgomery and Bucks counties have flipped from a Republican majority to a Democratic majority. And in Chester and Delaware counties, the Republican-registration edges have shrunk substantially.

The changes are largely attributed to the Obama campaign, which has had thousands of volunteers knocking on doors and registering voters throughout the state leading up to both the primary- and general-election-registration deadlines.

.....

As of Sept. 22, there were 17,811 more Democrats than Republicans in Montgomery County. In 2004, there were 54,522 more registered Republicans.

In Bucks County the Democrats now have an advantage of 8,235 voters. Four years ago, there was a Republican edge of 34,836.

In Delaware County, the Republicans now have a 24,660 registration advantage, compared with a 99,713 majority in 2004. And in Chester, the Republicans hold a 29,930 advantage, down from 71,654 in 2004.

If those trends continue, that will mean big things for progressive politics in PA. For example, I think those GOP Senators from the Philly suburbs may want to consider what this means for their political future, as they decide on whether or not to kill universal health care in Pennsylvania...

This is an interesting article by a Philly writer.

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Loserville: Obama Is Channeling Kerry and Gore

by Dave Lindorff
(www.thiscantbehappening.net)

Well, it’s happened, and it’s no surprise.

Barack Obama, the prospective Democratic presidential candidate, has managed to turn a 5-8 point lead over prospective Republican opponent John McCain into a 5-point deficit—a double-digit slide—in just two and a half months following a campaign that had voters really excited over his candidacy.

How did he manage this feat (which is documented in the latest Reuters/Zogby poll)? Simple: he followed the tried-and-true strategy of Democratic centrist advisers who have increasingly dominated his campaign since the end of the primaries, and who have a proven track record of producing Democratic electoral disasters now for several decades.

1. The AP reports that three high school football players will stand trial in the beating death of an illegal immigrant man in central Pennsylvania. Helen Gym wrote last month about the shameful delay in bringing those charges, even though there was an eyewitness to the crime.

2. New day, old ways: the Daily News says that the Obama campaign will hand out street money for Election Day, unlike in the May primary. I like this part of the article:

"They told me there are going to be resources here," Brady said. "That's what we do in Philadelphia; we pay people to work. They understand that."

Craig Schirmer, Pennsylvania director for the Obama campaign, would not talk about street money. But he did say that the campaign would be working closely with the local Democratic apparatus.

"As a campaign, we really are enjoying working with Congressman Brady and Mayor Nutter and Congressman Fattah," he said.

3. I won't link anything that will ruin the result, but you can watch Jose Garces (chef-owner of Amada and the brand-new crazy-fantasy-land Distrito) face off with maybe the most annoying man ever, Bobby Flay, again on Thursday, August 21, at 9pm on the Food Network.

Some numbers were running through my head this morning:

• PA Democratic Registration Advantage, November 1998: 442,671.
• PA Democratic Registration Advantage, May 2008: 1,014,052
• Percent of Pennsylvania House Reps that are Democratic: 50.2%
• Percent of Pennsylvania Senators that are Democratic: 42%

Dear Pennsylvania Democratic Party and activists: Get it together. A basic tie in the House and a huge GOP majority in the Senate is a sad commentary on the state of the PA Democratic party.

.........

• Number of passwords that the City Commissioners determined they could give out to view election returns: 150
• The number of passwords that Vince Fumo had by himself: 10
• The number of Philadelphia citizens who have now requested their own password within the last 5 days: 327

For those people who submitted them Friday, you should hear something by Friday (5 business days), and a final decision within thirty days.

.........

• Days until the November Election: 104
• Average PA Poll Lead for Barack Obama: 9.7%
• Number of pundits who have stated the obvious, that Barack Obama is going to kick John McCain's ass in PA: 0(?)

I am not saying we don't need to work hard here to get this done, because we do. But, as long as we do, McCain may as well not run an ad in PA.

What else is going on?

Back in the day, I was a huge Clinton supporter (by the way, back in the day was like last year), today that has changed. Clearly, Obama has demonstrated that he can do well in the general election. If you examine the coalition of folks that he has brought together, i.e., blacks, whites, young, not so young, Independents, and Republicans (Operation Chaos not withstanding), there is no way that you can reasonably conclude that he is less, not more likely to do well as a candidate in November.

Also, contrary to political spin, the base is uber-important. Given Hillary's early support of the Iraq war, this is an achilles heel for her. White rural Republicans will not vote for a D in November. Period. We will need overwhelming support from our base. Obama has proven that he can not only rally the base, but he can reach beyond it, which is not too shabby for a general.

As the Democratic contest continues on, the media has finally picked up on a simple fact: that apart from an absolute avalanche of super delegates supporting her (which will not happen), Hillary Clinton cannot win this nomination. So, while she sends around NRA-like mailings against Obama (oh, the irony), we wait for the inevitable to become clear.

One of the remaining undeclared super delegates- Bob Brady- has to my knowledge not officially announced he is voting for Obama. He did announce, however, he would support who the voters of his district supported. That was Obama, by a wide margin.

So, Rep. Brady, get going. You know all about healing political parties, right? It is time to come out for Senator Obama officially, and start that process before it is too late.

According to MSNBC, the Democratic party is becoming fractured due to the intense intraparty wrangling, fueled by a hotly contested primary battle. So, now is the time for folks to choose sides. I don't care if it's Hillary or Obama (actually I prefer Obama), but what I do not want to happen is a loss in November. We've lost two in a row-- I'm sick of losing! I'm especially sick of losing when we should be winning...

msnbc.com article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24396887/

So I curious about people's read on the latest salvo's between Rev. Wright at the Press Club vs. Obama's reaction. I'm still sorting it out. Its not that any of Wright's comments in the Q & A section were so terribly off (though they were clownish to the point of resembling a stand-up routine at points) but jeesh! "With friends like this who needs enemies" as they say.

First Wright's Q&A session:

As an Obama delegate candidate in Bob Brady's First Congressional District (Button 23, Second Column), I have been closely assessing the Obama campaign's role in the context of Philadelphia politics and Philadelphia history as I have been participating in it.

No campaign has ever had the potential for voter mobilization that this one has.

Ed Rendell set the recent record for driving up voter turunout when he got over 220,000 votes for Governor in 2002, beating Bob Casey by over 3 to 1.

Look for Obama to far exceed Rendell's total, and Clinton to far exceed Casey's total.

This race is going to change assumptions about Philadelphia voter apathy for years to come. It is going to show that if you give people a chance to vote for something meaningful, they will take it.

Please review the page B 11 of the Inquirer for an advertisement placed by my father, former Mayor Bill Green. In it, he makes the case for Barack Obama. I believe it is a great perspective on the Democratic presidential primary. Check out this link k or attached pdf.

The LA Times has a story about the Obama campaign's refusal to hand out street money to Philadelphia ward leaders to work the upcoming primary:

"We've heard directly from the Obama organizer who organizes our ward, and he told us it's an entirely volunteer organization and that I should not expect to see anything from the Obama campaign other than ads on TV and the support that volunteers are giving us," said Greg Paulmier, a ward leader in the northwest part of the city.

Neither the Clinton nor the Obama campaign would say publicly whether it would comply with Philadelphia's street money customs. But an Obama aide said Thursday that it had never been the campaign's practice to make such payments. Rather, the campaign's focus is to recruit new people drawn to Obama's message, the aide said.

The article also includes quotes from Carol Campbell, Dwight Evans, and ward leaders Peter Wilson and Garry Williams. It also includes this great anecdote about Bob Brady:

Brady was sitting in his campaign office with two of his political lieutenants. He reached into a desk drawer at one point and pulled out a $50 bill -- street money. Brady tore it in two and gave each man a half. Then the men made a bet: Whoever pulled in the most Democratic votes that day from his precincts would get both halves.

Local color aside, this is a hard issue. On the one hand, it's problematic that political loyalties seem to be for sale to whichever campaign can pony up the cash (several people say that if ward leaders don't get money from Obama, they'll take it from Clinton). On the other hand, if Obama's going to cut into Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania, he's going to need a strong showing in Philadelphia. Obama's campaign is rich as Croesus, and coming from Chicago, he knows how this process works.

It's also unclear exactly what Obama gets by standing on principle. Maybe the Clinton campaign could try to play Philadelphia off against the rest of the state if they could claim that Obama had "bought" city support. But in a big campaign like this, obscure issues like street money only have so much traction. Another alternative is that the combination of volunteers, an alternative GOTV operation, and the support of political leaders who have already endorsed Obama will be able to get the deed done.

It's possible that intentionally or not, the Obama campaign is testing a theory: is it possible to win in Philadelphia with a combination of big ad buys and all-volunteer support?

One thing is clear: the fact that the Obama campaign has chosen to forego the traditional methods of getting out the vote in the city creates both a need and an opportunity. The need is for supporters of the Obama campaign to get out and volunteer. The opportunity is for alternative organizations who support Obama, including progressive ones, to show what they can do on the national stage.