Obama Wisky roundup

Adam Doster

A few thoughts on Obama's 9th and 10th straight primary victories… 1) Obama cleaned up most demographic levels, but the world is a flutter with the inroads he made among the white working class. Here's John Dickerson at Slate. In Wisconsin, according to exit polls, Obama placed ahead of Clinton among those who make less than $50,000 a year and those with less than a college education. He has now won working-class white men in Wisconsin, Missouri, New Hampshire, California, Maryland, and Virginia. What's most encouraging about this for Obama supporters is that he's garnering support from the white working class without pandering to the troupes usually levied to win said vote -- masculinity, racial coding etc. He's staying on message and it's his message to which they are responding. He's not wasting time seeking out the Bubba vote but he's getting it anyway. 2) The man just keeps raising mad cash from small donors. Mad cash.The details of Mr. Obama’s January fund-raising illustrate just how much his campaign has been able to chart a new path for the presidential race. He brought in $28 million online, with 90 percent of those transactions coming from people who donated $100 or less, and 40 percent from donors who gave $25 or less, suggesting that these contributors could be tapped for more. (Donors are limited to giving $2,300 per candidate during the primary season.) More than 200,000 of the campaign’s nearly 300,000 donors in January were first-time givers to Mr. Obama. Obama's reliance on people's money is encouraging, but it doesn't mask the need for comprehensive campaign finance reform. That said, I was once of the persuasion that the small donor approach to public financing promulgated by Mark Shmitt was a weak compromise. Full pubic financing works in Arizona and Maine, I thought, and I was skeptical anyone could generate the necessary amount of small contributions tto make the program worthwhile. Well, Obama is doing it, and in some ways, proving the worth of that financing model. If you can engage citizens like he has, he should be entitled to their economic support. And McCain's attack on this is garbage. 3) Who is really sick of the Clinton plagarizing line? Dowd's column is sexist as hell, but she's right here. She changed to Change. She co-opted “It’s time to turn the page” and “Fired up and ready to go.” She couldn’t wait to shoplift the words “yes” and “can” from Obama’s trademark “Yes, we can!” — (which he appropriated from Cesar Chavez) — even though she was cagey enough to put them in separate slogans, “Yes, we will!” and “Americans still have that can-do spirit.” Hillary. Barack is a better orator than you. Just admit it and win votes a different way.

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Adam Doster, a contributing editor at In These Times, is a Chicago-based freelance writer and former reporter-blogger for Progress Illinois.
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