Day Forty-Six, May 20

For those of you out there still paying attention (to the national news media, not your humble narrator, of course), a lot has been going on in Obamaland since I made my last post. In order to bring the blog up to speed, I'll be posting three videos that help encapsulate just how much progress Barack's campaign has made in a little under a week, and provide a glimpse into how this will impact his oncoming candidacy for the Democratic party.

First off, the news so HUGE it demands capital letters and a bold typeface to boot: John Edwards got off the fence, and we're delighted to have him on our side! Ever since he withdrew his own bid for the presidency way back on January 30, Edwards has been very upright about his oath to keep his lips sealed until he was good and ready to lend his support to either Hillary or Barack. At a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan last Wednesday, Edwards gave a speech introducing the candidate to his rabid audience and finally put a country of Obamaphiles' worries to rest by coming out for our candidate. A perennial 'good guy' in both 2004 and 2008's Democratic races, Edwards' decision to show his support for Barack is great news, and gives major push for the Obama campaign, especially in the South (Edwards has served as a Senator, representing the voters of North Carolina). Like many of the other celebrity delegates who have come out in favor of Obama this year, Edwards' endorsement speech consisted of several glowing descriptions of the candidate, but in true Edwards fashion, his seventeen-minute speech focused on the issues that he is passionate about (education, poverty, health care), and societal ills that Obama can help solve as President. Here is a full length capture of that speech:



Next on this post's agenda is a breathtaking sight: at a rally held this Monday in Portland, OR, Obama drew over 75,000 people to hear him speak! The impressive--nay, astounding--collection of folks gathered in a single rally is a great example of how Obama's gaining momentum not just on tv news programs and in the papers, but in real, demonstrative ways. People are coming out more than ever, in real life, to see the man spread his message. If this many people are coming out to see him deliver the goods now, still six months before the general election, it makes me giddy to think what we will be a part of when the DNC comes to our front door in August.

Besides the sheer awesome glimpse of an ocean of people coming out Obama (and in spite of the forced twang in the background music), another promising side to this video is the tone of Barack's rhetoric. With his nomination as good as sealed by now, Obama has shifted his tone back to the more hopeful, inclusive type of speech that gained him national notoriety earlier in the year. In a quote taken from the clip, Obama said, "This campaign and this election are not about Barack Obama. It's not about Hillary Clinton. It's not about John McCain. It's about your hopes, it's about your dreams. It's about what's possible when a new generations of Americans stand up and say, 'We're not gonna settle for what is, we're gonna imagine what might be.'" The rest of that quote, and a glimpse of its landmark audience, can be viewed here:



Finally, and most pertinently tonight, it would be criminal to create a post without acknowledging Obama's victory in today's Oregon Democratic primary. Besides overtaking the state's polls by a margin of sixteen points, (cnn.com estimates here, as of 11pm MST Tuesday night), today Obama has also reached a significant goal in the delegate count, having now claimed over half of the pledged delegates up for grabs in the Democratic race. In other words, as analysts have been phoning in for several weeks now, it is now mathematically impossible for Hillary to win her party's nomination (at least in the delegate count). Although it must also be pointed out that Senator Clinton came away with a handy victory in the Kentucky primary (65-30 points), also held today, and that neither candidate is going to claim the 2,015 delegates needed to definitively seal the primary. However, taking the majority lead is an important accomplishment, and provides yet another mile marker in how far this campaign has come in just over a year of politicking. Wolf Blitzer's beard was among the first to report the nab here, while Obama himself addressed this noteworthy milestone at a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, where his presidential bid really took off just five months ago: