"OBAMA WINS BIG ON INDEPENDENTS" (Updated)

UPDATE: BarackObama.com is claiming Alaska for Obama. "New Mexico Is Still Out with 500 Votes Separating Them Right Now," Think On These Things.
Ari Melber (The Nation):

The Democrats' Super Tuesday battle offers a revealing yet indeterminate snapshot of a Democratic Party that is unusually energized and firmly divided.

Barack Obama won the most states, including pivotal red territory like Missouri, Georgia and Kansas, while Hillary Clinton ran up large margins in the blue strongholds of California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Final estimates for delegates, which ultimately choose the nominee, were also a dead heat.

Across the country, over three million more voters turned out in Democratic primaries than Republican contests -- a trend that persisted even in traditionally conservative states. Turnout in Missouri's Democratic primary was a whopping 70% higher than the G.O.P. contest, for example, where Obama won by a point. The last time the state held two contested primaries, in 2000, Republicans beat Democratic turnout by 56%.

Those numbers suggests that in both Red and Blue states, Democrats are bolstering their ranks with an intense contest between two compelling, celebrity candidates. If Super Tuesday settled anything, it flatly debunked the baseless (and supposedly altruistic) insider concern that a long race is automatically "bad" for the Democratic Party. In reality, a primary's impact depends on the contest, the candidates and the national mood. This one is working wonders for Democratic mobilization.

While Obama strategist David Axelrod reiterated that his candidate is "always the underdog" on Tuesday night, the campaign also seized on the results as evidence that Obama has more national appeal than Clinton. He won independents by large margins in most regions, including states in Clinton's column, such as Arizona and New Jersey, where one out of five primary voters were independents. He won them by 15 points in Clinton's home state of New York, and by 30 points in California. In the swing state of Missouri, independents flocked to Obama by a decisive 37 points, securing his narrow victory there.

For months, skeptics said Obama might have niche appeal among independents in small states that reward retail politicking, but he could not scale those advantages in a national race. In a single day, Obama proved his independent appeal in about half the country.

In his Tuesday night speech, Obama took the skeptics head on. "I want to speak directly to all those Americans who have yet to join this movement, but still hunger for change. We need you," he said. Calling on citizens who have been "taught to be cynical" to answer the feeling "in their gut," Obama pleaded for support to unite the nation, change American foreign policy and destroy Washington corruption. "We are the ones we've been waiting for!" Obama thundered, adding another memorable, movement-oriented line to his stump speech. (The idea, which has been credited to Arizona's Hopi Tribe and an old civil rights song, recently surfaced in Maria Shriver's endorsement of Obama on Monday.) Obama also said he would draw the best policy contrasts in the general election, as a nominee who flatly opposed the Iraq war, rejecting the Bush-Cheney policy in Iran, and never "wavered" on "fundamental" values like human rights and opposing torture.

While Clinton's speech was less pointed, she also aimed for an inspirational, unifying vision. "Here in America, we face our challenges and we embrace all of our people," she said. "We say with one voice -- give us the child who wants to learn, give us the people in need of work, give us the veterans who need our care. We say give us this economy to rebuild and this war to end!" The closing called on voters to not only back her campaign, but a cause: "Give us this nation to heal, this world to lead, this moment to seize."

Howie P.S.: Booman spins Obama's showing: "Obama Won Tonight." Markos posts "Huge night for Obama." Not all of the 877 comments are in agreement with that.

Barack Obama

Obama: "Our Time Has Come" (video)

Video from AP (04:03), via the Washington Post. Joel Connelly (Seattle P-I) is reporting "Obama's campaign said he would be in Seattle on Friday."

Barack Obama

"Jack Nicholson's voter call"

Audio,(00:40).

"Barack Obama votes, Feb. 5, 2008" (video)

AP Video, (05:53):

Barack and Michelle Obama cast their votes in the Democratic primary Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, at Shoesmith Elementary School on the South Side of Chicago.

Howie P.S. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times introduces the footage and did the video and audio. After Obama's appearance, Lynn Sweet interviews a young student who wants to interview him.

Barack Obama

"OBAMA'S ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT HITS THE POLLS." (with video)

Ari Melber, (The Nation) with video (02:25):

"What I do oppose is a dumb war!" > With those decisive words in October 2002, Barack Obama took a clear stand against the Iraq war. Over five years later, many politicians are still unable to explain their original war position, let alone rally the nation around a clear policy to honorably end the occupation.

Chicago resident Bob Howard stood near the front of that 2002 anti-war rally, close enough to be captured on the only known footage of the speech, and he's backed Obama ever since. After spotting Howard at a recent event, the campaign embedded a video blogger to accompany Howard on his trip to the polls today. Clad in the same purple shirt he wore to the first rally, Howard reflected on Obama's attempt to build his campaign as a movement, telling the campaign video blogger: He's the first person I've seen who's organized a presidential campaign thinking as a community organizer. The new YouTube clip, "Obama and the Guy with the Purple Shirt," touches on Obama's antiwar advocacy through the eyes of a single voter.

Barack Obama

"WA State Poll by SurveyUSA"

Survey USA:

1	Asked of 409 Registered voters identifying as Republicans
	Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.9%

Which of the remaining Republican candidates for President do you most support? (names rotated) Mike Huckabee? John McCain? Mitt Romney? Or, Ron Paul?

17%	Huckabee
40%	McCain
26%	Romney
9%	Paul
9%	Undecided

2	Asked of 575 Registered voters identifying as Democrats
	Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 4.2%

Which of the remaining Democratic candidates for President do you most support? (names rotated) Hillary Clinton? Or, Barack Obama?

40%	Clinton
53%	Obama
7%	Undecided

3	Asked of 984 registered voters with a party preference
	Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 2.9%

Washington's Democratic and Republican parties will hold precinct CAUCUSES on Saturday, February 9. Will you attend your precinct caucus?

26%	Yes
70%	No
5%	Not Sure

4	Asked of 984 registered voters with a party preference
	Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ± 2.1%

Separately, Washington's Democratic and Republican parties will hold PRIMARIES on Tuesday, February 19. Will you vote in the primary?

88%	Yes
10%	No
2%	Not Sure

Howie P.S.: Don't break out the schnapps (or anti-depressants) yet, but if you go to the link you will find that it shows a 22pt lead for Obama among Democrats who say they will caucus on the 9th.
Barack Obama

"Electoral Bonanza: Obama right on key in California"

David Horsey (Seattle P-I):

LOS ANGELES -- As Mama Laura waited patiently, I fumbled through my wallet to find the correct bills to pay the cover charge at the door of Babe's and Ricky's Inn, Home of the Blues.

"I think that's the right president," I told her as I handed her two fives.

"Better than the one we have," Mama Laura replied, laughing.

Mama Laura has seen plenty of presidents. Balloons left over from her 87th birthday party still decorate her cozy nightclub in Leimert Park, an enclave of black-owned businesses that many consider the soul of the African-American community in South Central Los Angeles.

Mama Laura moved her club here after life got too rough in Watts. On almost every night of the 50 years she has been in the blues business, the woman has sat at the door and greeted her clientele. These days, the customers are as often Anglo or Asian as African-American. On Friday night, the local musicians on the stage were a mix of races -- black, white, Latino -- but the music was an easy blend. Earl "the Duke" Williams sang lead vocals and made the blues seem bright.

"I've reached a turning point in my life," he sang. "I've changed."

Changed, like Leimert Park, like California, like America.

Jewel, a younger friend sitting with Mama Laura, told me everything seems different this election year.

"There are a lot of firsts," Jewel said. "The first woman, the first black who could be president. ... Since I am a woman and an African American, it's a little confusing."

In the competition for the mother lode of delegates in the nation's biggest state, much attention is being aimed at California's ethnic communities. Bill Clinton visited three black churches on Sunday. Later in the day, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Caroline Kennedy led a big multiracial rally at UCLA.

The surprise guest at that event was Maria Shriver, Kennedy cousin and wife of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Though her husband endorsed John McCain last week, Shriver had made a last-minute decision to come to the rally and endorse Obama.

"If Barack Obama was a state, he'd be California," Shriver told the huge crowd. "Diverse. Open. Smart. Independent. Bucks tradition. Innovative. Inspirational. Dreamer. Leader."

To this list, California's first lady might have added one more Obama attribute: mixed race. To many of the young voters who have been energized by Obama's candidacy, he is less the black candidate than the embodiment of the multiracial world in which they have grown up.

I saw that world on Saturday night at McMurphy's, a sports pub and dance club coincidentally located just a block from the San Gabriel Valley Obama headquarters in Pasadena. McMurphy's was packed with 20-somethings -- some black, some white, some Hispanic, and many who could not be easily categorized. In one room, hip-hop music drove the dancing. Outside on the patio, the beat was Latin. Downstairs it was David Bowie. The young crowd moved easily between them.

Twenty-five-year-old Sharra Ainsley was out on the dance floor. Shaara is a graduate student at Cal State Monterey Bay. Three of her four grandparents were immigrants -- one from Japan, one from Egypt and one from England. When people guess, they think she's Hawaiian.

Shaara said she's grown up in a new America in which there have been, as yet, no glass ceilings for girls of her generation. To her cohort, the idea of electing Hillary Clinton seems not so much revolutionary as it seems a return to the 1990s. Obama -- with his African father, white mother and childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia -- seems a far more contemporary choice.

"I think youth is going to come out huge for Obama," Shaara predicted.

We will see. Younger voters may or may not make a difference on Super Tuesday, but a day will come when a racial and generational transformation will rock our political world. Culturally, all of the country is becoming more like California and less like Iowa, and America's young citizens -- even the evangelical young people of Colorado Springs and the young cowboys in Wyoming -- are much more comfortable with that change than their elders.

Around the block from Babe's and Ricky's, between the Zambezi Bazaar and the Kumasi Gift Shop, there is a new jazz club called Papa West. The proprietor is Harold Weston, a Vietnam War veteran who came home messed up, found God, got his act together and now is trying his hand at the cabaret business.

"When I came up," he said, talking of his childhood, "we didn't have nothing but food and love." His father, though, was a hard-working role model. Obama, he said, would be a good role model for today's young black men.

"He's innovative, he's young," Weston said. "He wants to change the way it is."

Dante, a young man in a red and black zoot suit and a wide-brimmed hat, was singing Jazz standards in the dining room. In the middle of his set, Dante called up a woman he said was a trailblazer in the local jazz scene, Mickey Champion.

"If there was no her," Dante said, "there wouldn't be no me."

He handed a cordless microphone to Miss Champion, a small, ancient black woman in a little fur hat. She walked among the tables, belting out a tune in a voice as young as today.

Before the song was finished, she motioned Dante over and gave him a wide smile of blessing. Mickey Champion was done and she passed the microphone to the next generation.

Barack Obama

"Obama's Wired Tuesday Push"

Ari Melber (The Nation),with video:

In one last push to mobilize voters, Michelle Obama is asking her husband's supporters to get viral on Tuesday.

In a final salvo for Super Tuesday, the Obama Campaign blasted an email from Ms. Obama urging supporters to share the new music video "Yes We Can."

The video was a smash hit across the web since launching on Friday, bringing direct footage of Obama's stump speech to millions of people. It already netted over 1.8 million views on YouTube, and potentially hundreds of thousands more from another hub, DipDive.com, which drew over 1,000 links from U.S. websites since last week. The Obama Campaign's new viral push should bolster those numbers -- his State of the Union rebuttal recently topped a million views on YouTube. And Obama's YouTube profile has drawn over 11.5 million views, more than ten times Hillary Clinton.

While Obama is tapping energized supporters and intrigued viewers to basically spread his message for free, Clinton invested in an hour of national paid media with a televised town hall on Monday night. The "Voices Across America" event was broadcast on the Hallmark channel, and streamed on HillaryClinton.com. (Neither Hallmark nor the campaign would comment on the cost, according to MediaWeek.)

Of course, all campaigns invest heavily in television, and Obama just bought local Super Bowl ads. But this viral video strategy bolsters and deepens his voter outreach. Obama reaches more people this way, and enables them to share his message with their contacts. He speaks to young voters in their preferred medium. He routes around the traditional media filter -- and its penchant for reactive conflict -- with a proactive message. (It's hard to show leadership while parrying Brian Williams' tactical quizzing, as Obama learned Monday; Video below.)

The key is that Obama also asks supporters to do something. It could be forwarding the video for Michelle, or telling their MySpace friends to vote, or busting out a cell phone to mobilize strangers. Lately the campaign has even empowered supporters to call voters from home, punching in their results online:

This week, the campaign's leading web volunteers made 100 calls per person. The record is 267, held by one Thomas Hargis. National emails about voter contact and polling places are still top priority, an Obama aide told me, and the music video was added for a final punch. Yet this connected activism is not confined to the number of calls made or videos shared. Inviting people to choose their participation in meaningful, interactive ways, from anonymously persuading strangers to shouting opinions across intimate social networks, can tightly bind people to each other and the candidate. That has little to do with Internet technology and, sadly, almost nothing to do with typical campaigns.

"We may finally be coming to understand what De Tocqueville saw – the promise of democratic politics is in people's ability to enter into relationships with one another to articulate common purposes and act on them," wrote Marshall Ganz, the veteran UFW organizer and RFK backer who advised Obama and Howard Dean on movement-building. "Organizing to bring people back into politics is not a cost, but an investment in rebuilding the democratic infrastructure of our public life under assault for far too many years," he added, in a 2006 blog post.

Unlike Dean, the Obama Campaign does not stress its historic Internet success or run early victory laps in the blogosphere. It does not even discuss the web as an obvious metaphor for Obama's candidacy: An open frontier where race and gender recede, new ideas vanquish the old, and citizens converse and connect in ways that the prior generations would never understand, let alone support.

Perhaps that is simply because no presidential candidate wants to sound like the next Howard Dean. Or maybe, the campaign knows that you don't build a movement by talking about it. You do it, person by person, until one day, everyone can see it.

"Winning Dem holds key to new strategy"

Ari Melber (Politico):

The Super Tuesday elections could answer the core political question that vexes Democrats.

Does the public rejection of Bush conservatism offer a rare opportunity for Democrats to run an outsider who can recruit new supporters and score a decisive victory?

Or have economic and foreign-policy woes stoked a malaise that favors no party, incumbent or opposition, and leaves voters gloomily deciding another tight presidential race?

In other words, is this a year when voters will bear down or lift up?
Hillary Rodham Clinton urges Democrats to make the responsible choice. Now is the time to rebuff feel-good symbolism in favor of experience and the "change we need," as her campaign motto intones.

Barack Obama tells Democrats it's not enough to cleanse the White House of a corrupt incumbent party that abused the rule of law.

To truly end this nasty stretch of American politics, the public must unite to upend Washington's entire partisan culture.Today their appeals will be tested for the general election.

Super Tuesday

The nomination contest is technically a delegate fight, but not all delegates are created equal.

Decent candidates must win their own states, for example, so Clinton practically begins with a 79-delegate edge, since her home turf of New York is bigger than Obama's in Illinois.

She is also well-positioned for 477 delegates in the other two largest states — New Jersey and California — so the media "expectations" run high for a Clinton delegate lead.

But primary victories there are not necessarily indicative of strength in the general election. After all, losing Democratic nominees routinely win New York and California by wide margins. In reality, the best indicators of the Democrats' general election prospects are tucked away in the remaining 18 states, each of which has fewer than 100 delegates a pop.

The true potential of Clinton's and Obama's candidacies faces the most consequential test in key swing states such as Missouri, Colorado and Arizona.

President Bush took Missouri by about 200,000 votes last cycle and won the other two by about 100,000 votes. Most Democrats want a nominee who can make up those gaps.

Clinton has proven to be a strong candidate when competing in a traditional Democratic electorate. Exit polls showed her victories were demographically deep in New Hampshire and Nevada.

While she may not have gotten much credit for rallying the base in the swing state of Nevada, the fact is that she clobbered Obama among Democrats by a solid 12 points. (He made up the rest of his support from independents.) Yet when turnout is up, Clinton goes down.

Obama won the two state contests with the highest record turnout: the Iowa caucuses and the South Carolina primary.

The youth vote tripled in both states, bolstering Obama's victories, and South Carolina saw higher participation in the Democratic primary than in its Republican counterpart for the first time since 1992. Those new voters came out of the woodwork of a red state to back Obama, who won every age group under 65.

If he can reproduce that kind of mobilization in the key, non-coastal states today, Democrats will know that the road to the White House is paved with post-partisanship.

After all, primary performance is still the most tangible trial run for determining who can mobilize voters for the general election. Polls and pundits are useless, as this season has already shown, and every candidate claims to be most "electable." Instead, it pays to look at who is already motivating new voters in the few states that matter. If they vote for you in a primary, they'll come back in November.

That's one reason why the only state that went from red to blue in the last presidential cycle was New Hampshire.

Democrats spent months finding and mobilizing new supporters there for a hotly contested primary, won by John F. Kerry, and they turned out again in November.

Bottom line: Tuesday's "delegate winner" could actually be the less electable candidate, if the winner's support comes from the coasts.

Candidate Qualities

The campaigns will obviously spin whatever advantage they have. But Clinton and Obama still have fundamentally different political orientations.

He wants to transcend partisanship; she promises to fulfill it. He truly thinks he can win with a sweeping majority of young people, independents and former Republicans — the "Obamacans."

She honestly thinks the Republicans will always create tight, divisive races and you need to fight the base with a base.

Then, of course, there is Bill. Clinton backers don't like to discuss it, but the reality is that Bill Clinton never won by more than a plurality. That is not a knock against Clinton's political or policy skills; he was easily our best president since John F. Kennedy. But it is a reminder of how both Clintons operate on the premise that modern presidential elections are tough, narrow races — no matter what.

They see no other way.

That's why Hillary Clinton's winning formula is to unite the traditional Democratic electorate, assuming traditional turnout. Obama's premise is bolder but more difficult, leading the party's past pluralities to a new, post-partisan majority.

And if you look at the right parts of the map, Super Tuesday could finally reveal who has the better idea.

Barack Obama

"What Victory in South Carolina Looked Like" (video)

BarackObamadotcom, video (04:55):

A tribute to the students of Benedict College, who got out the vote and won South Carolina for Barack Obama. "Fired Up and Ready to Go" by Bergevin Brothers.
myspace.com/BergevinBrothersMusic.

Howie P.S.: The Bergevin Brothers recorded this song in Seattle with Matt Cameron (Pearl Jam) and Pat Wright's Total Experience Gospel Choir.

Barack Obama

"Clinton's '35 years of change' omits most of her career"

McClatchy Newspapers:

To hear Hillary Clinton talk, she's spent her entire career putting her Yale Law School degree to work for the common good.

She routinely tells voters that she's "been working to bring positive change to people's lives for 35 years." She told a voter in New Hampshire: "I've spent so much of my life in the nonprofit sector." Speaking in South Carolina, Bill Clinton said his wife "could have taken a job with a firm ... Instead she went to work with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund."

The overall portrait is of a lifelong, selfless do-gooder. The whole story is more complicated — and less flattering.

Clinton worked at the Children's Defense Fund for less than a year, and that's the only full-time job in the nonprofit sector she's ever had. She also worked briefly as a law professor.

Clinton spent the bulk of her career — 15 of those 35 years — at one of Arkansas' most prestigious corporate law firms, where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards.

Neither she nor her surrogates, however, ever mention that on the campaign trail. Her campaign Web site biography devotes six paragraphs to her pro bono legal work for the poor but sums up the bulk of her experience in one sentence: "She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm."

The full truth doesn't fit into the carefully crafted narrative the campaign has developed about Clinton, said Sally Bedell Smith, the author of "For Love of Politics," a study of the Clintons' partnership.

"She wants to be seen as someone who has devoted her life to public service," Smith said. "I suppose if you say it enough, maybe you can get people to believe it."

Spokesman Phil Singer said the campaign highlights Clinton's side work because it discovered early on that voters didn't know about it.

Clinton did a great deal of public service work during her time at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock. She served on the board of the Legal Services Corp. during the Carter administration and for a time was its chair. She helped found a child advocacy system in Arkansas and took on several tasks as the state's first lady, such as revisions of the state's education system and rural health care delivery. She also served on the board of directors of the Children's Defense Fund, and on the board of a children's hospital.

"It's important for voters to know that she worked to improve rural health care, to improve education," Singer said. "Yes, she worked at a law firm. Are voters interested in hearing about some accounting case she worked on, or things people care about in the real world? ... That's the point, that's the rationale. It's nothing more complicated than that."

Clinton did receive a smaller salary than most other Rose partners, topping out at about $200,000, in part because of her outside activities, according to several biographies.

But "these were all activities on the margins of her professional life, working as a corporate lawyer, representing corporations," biographer Smith said.

In her autobiography, "Living History," Clinton mentions two cases. In one, she represented a canning company against a man who found part of a dead rat in his pork and beans. In another, she represented a logging company accused of wrongdoing after an accident injured several workers. While Clinton used both anecdotes for comic effect, in both cases she was working for corporate interests.

She also served on corporate boards, including that of retail giant Wal-Mart from 1986-1992, frozen yogurt purveyor TCBY from 1985-1992 and cement manufacturer LaFarge from 1990-1992. She earned tens of thousands of dollars in fees from each.

Clinton's firm represented Wal-Mart and TCBY while she sat on their boards, a cozy practice that corporate governance experts frown upon because of the potential for conflicts of interest.

Politicians naturally want to stick to their chosen narratives, but other aspects of Clinton's relationship with the Rose Law Firm could remind voters of the more controversial side of the Clinton legacy.

There was her work on behalf of Madison Guaranty, a failed savings and loan at the heart of the Whitewater investigation — the billing records of which were mysteriously found in a White House storage room years after investigators first asked for them. And there's Webster Hubbell, a Rose partner, Clinton pal and high-ranking Justice Department official who was convicted of fraud charges related to his work at the firm.

Clinton isn't the only candidate downplaying less high-minded work. Rival Barack Obama cultivates a squeaky-clean image and referred to his work as a "civil rights attorney" at Thursday's Los Angeles debate. He didn't mention other work he did during his decade at Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, a small Chicago law firm, helping craft housing deals involving millions of dollars in public subsidies.

Among those involved in some of the deals: Obama patron Tony Rezko. He donated thousands to Obama's campaigns, raised thousands more and was even involved in the purchase of the Obama family home in Chicago.

These days, Rezko is awaiting trial in federal court on fraud charges.

Barack Obama

"BARACK OBAMA'S SUPER BOWL AD" (with video)

Ari Melber, (The Nation) with video (00:32):

Barack Obama just made himself part of Super Bowl Sunday, running a campaign ad in over 20 states voting next week. A national Super Bowl ad costs over $2.5 million, but Fox refused to run any such ads for presidential campaigns, citing FCC rules that restrict favoritism. So the Obama Campaign plunked down for local ads to get over the hurdle.

The ad features Obama calling on football fans and voters to unite and end the war, fight fear and division, renew the economy and stand up for "something new." It ends with a plea from Obama's speech that "the world as it is is not the world as it has to be." For her part, Hillary Clinton has said she hopes the "New York" teams win on Sunday and Tuesday.

Howie P.S.: Praise Jah, I finally found something Hillary and I agree on, but only the Sunday part.
Barack Obama

"Obama for President Rally at UCLA " (video)

BarackObamadotcom, video (13:44):

Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, Michelle Obama, Maria Shriver at UCLA Rally. Full rally video (75:25) here.

Howie P.S.: Once again, Michelle rocked my world.Barack Obama

"How Obama Could Create a Long-Term Democratic Majority"

Paul Loeb (email):

Commentators are talking, and rightly so, about how young voters are flocking to Barack Obama. Their overwhelming support gave Obama his Iowa margin, kept him just a few points behind in New Hampshire and Nevada, and contributed to his massive South Carolina victory.

Young voters haven't always turned out historically, but they're responding to Obama's message, and together with his equally massive support from African Americans and strong appeal to independents, their passionate enthusiasm could help him expand the Democratic base enough not only to win in November, but to win decisively.

Obama also offers the chance to make this new generation part of an enduring Democratic coalition--because once young voters support a particular party a few times in a row, they're likely to gravitate toward that party for the rest of their lives.

That so many young Obama supporters are turning out to rally, volunteer and vote suggests that he might be one of those watershed candidates who really can bring a new generation into politics and help shape their long-term loyalties, permanently enlarging the Democratic share of the electorate. But because of Hillary Clinton's attacks on Obama, she risks destroying this shift just as it's beginning to emerge.

Look at the historical patterns: Studies from the past fifty years find that party loyalties tend to form early--for Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike. It was true for the FDR generation, for those who came of age during the anti-war activism of the late Vietnam era, and with the young adults who helped cascade Reagan into office and whose compatriots have remained more conservative ever since.

Major historical events like wars and economic depressions can shift this. So can political scandals and personal crises and conversions. Systematic organizing efforts can also shift voters' worldview and context, particularly for those politically detached, which is one reason unions matter so much. Still, some major patterns get set early on, and that's likely to keep being true.

Generations need several elections to cement the pattern. The votes of 18- to 29-year-olds started shifting back in the Clinton years. Young voters gave Clinton an initial 9 point margin and increased it the next round, but their turnout dropped from the highest since 18-year-olds got the vote to the lowest in the same period.. In 2000, Gore led Bush among this group buy 3%, with Ralph Nader bleeding off another 5%. Led by increases in young African American and Latino voters, they were the only generation to favor Kerry, and did so by a ten percent margin.

These shifts accelerated in 2006. Fueled by the Bush administration's myriad disasters, young voters played a critical role, supporting Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by a massive 60% to 38% difference. They did so in every region of the country, from a three to one split in the East to a three point margin in the South. They provided the critical margin for Senators Tester, Webb and McCaskill, and fed the victories of the four other victorious challengers. Had it been up to young Americans alone, the Democrats would have also won Senate campaigns in Tennessee, Arizona, and Nevada; Ned Lamont would have defeated Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, and a slew of additional House seats would have changed hands. The Democrats would have elected Senators from 26 states, with Republicans carrying just four.

The passion of young people for Obama's campaign is fueled by the Iraq war, an uncertain economy, major concerns about the environment and global warming, and the religious right's attacks on sexuality. But more than anything it's also fueled by Obama's eloquent insistence that change is possible and that ordinary citizens can play a key role. It's fueled by the sense that Obama's personal story anticipates the story of an America that moves beyond its divisions and tackles our fundamental problems. This group also seems to resist the idea that a presidency can simply be handed down like a dynastic succession.

Participating in numbers we haven't seen in decades, these new voters fervently want Obama to win. They're reaching out to enlist their peers and volunteering to help reach others. They can be a powerful force to help him prevail.

But if Hillary Clinton is nominated, this momentum will likely crumble. The young women and men who've been flooding the Democratic primaries and caucuses will feel betrayed by a candidate who's just finished doing her best to destroy the person they've invested their hopes in. And as a result, they may simply stay home. It's not just that Hillary is running against Obama. That would be fine. It's that she and Bill and their surrogates have relentlessly assaulted Obama's character, in a scorched-earth style worthy of Karl Rove. I've devoted an entire article to documenting just a fraction of these instances: her lying about his record (and her on) on critical Iraq and Iran votes, and his votes on abortion choice; her unleashing surrogates like civil rights activist turned WalMart pitchman Andy Young to explain how Obama really wasn't black enough or Black Entertainment Television CEO Robert Johnson (a virulently anti-union corporate head who's backed Bush on issues like the estate tax and privatizing Social Security) to refer to Obama's youthful cocaine use, with Clinton standing next to him at a South Carolina rally. When Hillary says Obama has no right to build up "false hopes," and Bill calls Obama's vision of history "a fairy tale," how can Obama's young supporters not feel attacked in their own hope and dreams? Had Clinton run a less-harsh campaign, like that of John Edwards, she might expect to inherit Obama's passionate young voters--and volunteers. But given the virulence of her attacks, I just can't see them suddenly turning on a dime and enthusiastically supporting her.

Young voters are historically the least likely to participate. The failure of the Democrats to stop Bush's Iraq war has already made many cynical. Obama has reversed this cynicism, but if Clinton crushes the dreams of his supporters, a great many will stay home in disgust. Or, if they do end up voting, they certainly won't work to turn out their peers. As a friend said of his community college students, "the most active ones in my class say they won't even vote for her if she's nominated."

The same is true, of course, of African American voters. The Clinton campaign's attempts to cage Obama in a racial box (for instance by Bill Clinton's dismissing his massive South Carolina victory as just an echo of Jesse Jackson 's 1984 and 1988 campaigns) could have an equally disastrous impact on African American turnout if Hillary Clinton is the nominee come November. Clinton also risks the defection of people who fit neither demographic, but are simply so furious at her support for Bush's Iraq and Iran policies and her massive corporate ties, that they simply cannot let themselves vote for her. I get those responses every time I write on the subject. Taken together, if these groups stay home (and Republicans mobilized by Hillary-hatred turn out), it's easy to see how a candidate like John McCain could transform a prime Democratic opportunity into yet another needless defeat.

If the youth vote affected only the upcoming election, the stakes would be massive. But it's worse yet because Clinton's nomination would likely shift the future votes of a generation. If I thought Barack Obama were simply an empty suit, I'd be skeptical too. Like any political leader, he has his weaknesses. I wish he'd deferred less to the senior Senate leadership on issues like Iraq. But then I look at his record engaging and bringing together once-powerless individuals and communities, speaking out against the war, and linking our health care crisis to his mother dying of cancer while her insurance company tried to throw her off their rolls. I value his stress on empowering ordinary citizens to act. I see enough actions of courage and vision to suggest his presidency might just be able to equal the sum of his powerful words. Then I look at Clinton and wonder why she's fighting so fiercely against her fellow Democrats, after doing so little to fight Bush's destructive policies when he was riding high in the polls.

I think this is part of what the young voters sense too and why their hopes have soared with Obama's campaign. If we dash them now, we may be paying for this choice for far longer than the next four years.

Barack Obama

"Video: Celebrities Produce “Yes We Can” Music Video for Barack Obama"

Think On These Things, with video (04:25):

Watch an interview with the producers of the video below.

Read more about the video here.

Barack Obama

"Washington State Democratic Caucuses: Everything You Need To Know"

Dan Kirkdorffer:

Washington State's Democratic caucuses are only 1 week away now, and this is another good time to remind people about that and how you can find your caucus.

The caucus will start at 1pm on Saturday February 9th.

Word of advice: don't be late, be early! Record turnout is expected, and because of this, it will surely take more time than in the past for everyone to sign in. Expect the possibility of lines or parking problems. Plan ahead!

To find the caucus for your location click this button:

Then enter your last name and zip code. If you know your precinct number you can enter that.

Your caucus vote will be the only one that counts toward the state's delegate allotment. The ballot you got in the mail really only matters if you're a Republican.

If you're unsure about how a caucus works, you can view this caucus training video, or this caucus FAQ video, or this FAQ document.

Some other rules:

- You don't have to be 18 yet to vote at a caucus, as long as you will be by November 4.

- Otherwise you do need to be a registered voter, so get yourself registered!

You can also now obtain precinct maps of all the precincts in King County organized by legislative district.

Use them, if you will, as a further aid to determine your precinct and find your King County caucus location for February 9th.

Finally, this is your chance to have your say about who will be the Democratic nominee. Please do what you can to participate in what will be an historic election for the nation and Democrats and help put this country back on the right path. Get out and vote, and bring your friends and neighbors along as well regardless of who they support.

Every vote matters!

Howie P.S.: My understanding is that you can register to vote at the caucus.

"The Accompanists" (with video and slideshow)

WaPo, with slide show:

Both are confident and funny, opinionated and very smart. Both are Ivy League lawyers with working-class roots. Both have formidable identities independent of their formidable partners. Both are history-making spouses of history-making presidential candidates.

It is fascinating enough that Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are playing on the same field as their partners duel for the Democratic nomination. More intriguing still is her effectiveness, hardly a given for a recent campaign recruit matched against a two-term president.

Clinton, 61, earned his reputation as one of the most gifted national politicians in modern times while Obama was still a young lawyer trying to find herself. Obama, 44, kept her political forays to a minimum while building a career on community outreach in Chicago, yet more than a few enchanted voters have said after watching her that she should be the one in public office.

They share an ability to please a crowd, although in styles as different as a piano and a saxophone. Her riffs are typically smooth and tart, usually understated, always controlled; his are showy and wide-ranging, often roaming exuberantly through complex material.

On the campaign trail, as one staff member put it, Bill Clinton is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief validator. He zips around the country -- this week in states from Illinois to Georgia to Missouri to Colorado -- reassuring Democrats, above all, that she is ready but he has her back. Michelle Obama's role is more of a portraitist. She jetted to both coasts this week to deepen the picture of the self-described skinny black guy with a funny name, and to argue that a divided nation needs him now.

The Clintons and the Obamas are crossing rhetorical paths more frequently these days.

Leading up to the South Carolina primary, the voluble former president assumed the role of antagonist in chief. He called Barack Obama's assertion of consistent opposition to the Iraq war a "fairy tale" and suggested that Obama was way too admiring of Ronald Reagan. He told one audience that "people tell me that Hillary doesn't have a chance to win here" because the state's voters care so deeply about race and gender.

Michelle Obama, who rarely talks explicitly about her husband's Democratic opponents, had something to say about all of that.

"Another candidate's spouse has been getting an awful lot of attention," understandably, she wrote in a fundraising e-mail last week. "What we didn't expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we've seen recently. We didn't expect misleading accusations that willfully distort Barack's record."

The day before the primary, she and Bill Clinton campaigned within an hour's drive of each other.

"My fear," Obama told a rapt mid-morning audience at Central Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Hilton Head, "is that we don't know what truth looks like anymore.

"I desperately want change, personally," Obama said. "A change in tone, a change in the tone that creates division and separates us, that makes us live in isolation from one another. Sometimes our politics uses that division as a tool and a crutch. We think we can mend it all up after all the dirt has been thrown, but we can't."

Hours later, no dirt surfaced as Clinton addressed an enthusiastic throng on nearby St. Helena Island. He stayed on his very best behavior, developing the approach he has used in this week's run-up to Super Tuesday. More than an hour late, he skipped the pleasantries and charged right into his pitch.

Within three minutes, he was describing a brewing economic calamity. Within four, he was offering a three-point plan to deal with the mortgage crisis. Within five, he was rattling off his version of life in America seven years after the end of his presidency:

"Median family income after inflation's about a thousand dollars lower today than it was the day I left office. But the cost of health care has about doubled, the cost of a college education is up, the cost of energy is up, the cost of housing is up. Last year, food costs grew at twice the rate of inflation. . . . In our eight years, we had 22.7 million jobs and almost 8 million people move from poverty into the middle class."

On he went for more than an hour, firing off policies and programs as if it were a State of the Union address. Pell grants, health-care reform, stem-cell research, green-collar jobs, veterans, Medicare, the Geneva Conventions, Iran, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the tax code. He said, at one point, "Let me be very specific about this."

Hillary Clinton may be the presidential candidate, but much of the future Bill Clinton sketches on the stump is about putting the band back together. Watching him engage the crowd is a little like going to a Beach Boys concert, 20 years on. He knows all the old tunes and delivers them reliably. The crowd, mostly middle-aged and older, laughs and cheers in satisfied bursts, remembering the good times.

Clinton's talk is neither personal nor emotional. He does less to humanize his wife, which is often the designated role of political spouse, than to recite her credentials and bolster her argument that she is more ready for the White House than Obama. He mentions her often -- "The third thing she says we have to do"; "she will never tolerate that"; "finally, she believes . . . " -- but the narrative often veers into Clintons, plural, or Bill Clinton, singular.

"I tell people all the time," he said at one point, "this war is costing $120 billion a year."

Near then end, Clinton called his wife "the most qualified, best candidate I've had a chance to support for president in 40 years as a voter. You know, a lot of mean things have been said about Hillary over the years, mostly because she had the misfortune to be my wife and they were being mean to me. And they were mean to me because I won twice. It wasn't too complicated!"

The crowd loved it -- and received the intended message.

"If you vote for Hillary and she wins, you get two for the price of one," gushed Lynn Sutherland, 61, a part-time decorator, as Clinton 42 shook dozens of hands before racing to Charleston to introduce the aspiring Clinton 44. "There's an enormous amount of things he can do that will be unbelievably helpful to the country."

Beaufort resident Kevin Mears, 40, considered the former president's earlier criticism of Obama "a bit of a distortion. It's a bit of a no-no. But he's walking a line that others have never walked before. We should cut him a little slack."

Michelle Obama had a different challenge when she spoke to audiences of 200 or more in Hilton Head and rural Estill. She, too, talked of her spouse's readiness, but in different terms and tones, less a policy seminar than a plea delivered around a kitchen table. She pointed to his community organizing and his four terms in the Illinois senate.

Always the more pointed of the two Obamas, she wastes no words and takes her time with the ones she uses.

"Everywhere I go, people are saying, 'Barack is not detailed enough.' . . . You see, the truth of this matter is that this isn't rocket science," Obama said to row upon row of supporters in an Estill storefront, explaining that she has seen countless models of first-rate schools, early childhood education programs and senior centers. "That's what leadership means. It's someone who can touch our souls in a way we haven't seen and can inspire us to be better to one another and to ourselves. That is the difference in this race."

The Iraq war is an issue she addressed directly.

"Well, let me tell you something, I live with the man," Obama said, employing a mix of authority and incredulity. "He was always opposed to the war and he spoke out publicly against it at a time when that wasn't convenient for him. What his opponents won't tell you is he was in the middle of his own tough race for the U.S. Senate."

In etching the themes of transformation -- the core of the Obama campaign narrative -- she uses language that echoes conversations about values and propriety in the late '90s.

"It isn't just about hope and inspiration. It is about character, quite frankly," Obama said. "I am here, away from my kids, talking like this all over the country because Barack is different. It is about character."

Obama is often asked how she and her husband are handling the rough-and-tumble of the campaign. She swears she finds none of it surprising.

"Power," said Michelle Obama, "concedes nothing without a struggle."

Howie P.S.: Michelle is interviewed on CNN, video (08:23).
Barack Obama

"Closing Income Gap Tops Obama’s Agenda for Economic Change"

NY Times:

WICHITA, Kan. — Senator Barack Obama says the top priority of the next president should be to create a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved by either President Bush in the current decade or even Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

In an hourlong interview outlining his economic views, Mr. Obama praised the Clinton administration for reducing the deficit and setting the stage for the ’90s boom. But he said Mr. Clinton had failed to halt a long-term increase in income inequality that had left the middle class feeling squeezed.

If elected, Mr. Obama said he would to try to forge a popular mandate for policy changes that could reverse a generation of slow wage growth and outlast any one administration. At the top of his list would be shifting the tax burden more toward the wealthy and making investments — in health care, alternative-energy research and education — that would cost a significant amount of money but could ultimately lift economic growth.

“The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with,” Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, said.

Mr. Obama’s agenda would be complicated by the government’s projected budget deficit, which is primarily a result of soaring Medicare and other health care costs expected in coming decades. No candidate, in either party, has yet offered a detailed plan for bringing those costs under control, health care experts say.

Speaking on a flight to Kansas from Washington this week, Mr. Obama predicted that the economy would continue to worsen in coming months. In particular, he said he expected some of the recent problems in the mortgage market to spread to other parts of the consumer-credit business, as households struggled to pay bills.

“I don’t think we’ve bottomed out yet,” he said.

Although Mr. Obama’s economic approach comes wrapped in his conciliatory rhetoric, it is in some ways more aggressive than that of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

He has called for shoring up Social Security by raising payroll taxes on very high earners, while she has not. He also favors a permanent tax credit of up to $1,000 for families in the bottom 90 percent or so of the income distribution, which makes his package of middle-class tax credits significantly larger than hers.

Clinton advisers say Mr. Obama has been unrealistic about paying for his tax cuts and would end up forfeiting the Democrats’ hard-won reputation for fiscal discipline. Obama aides say he would fully pay for his proposals by, among other things, cracking down on overseas tax havens and corporate tax loopholes.

Either way, the Obama program clearly emphasizes help for the middle class — through tax cuts and new programs — more than deficit reduction. His approach puts him somewhat to the left of the Clinton administration but broadly in line with the Democratic Party now.

Indeed, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton hold similar or identical positions on a host of economic issues, and Democratic economists not aligned with either campaign often speak positively about both.

They each favor subsidies for families without health insurance (though Mrs. Clinton would mandate that everyone has insurance, while Mr. Obama would not). Both have also called for more government regulation of business, somewhat tighter restrictions on foreign trade and more investment in health care infrastructure, alternative-energy research and other basic science.

But the two candidates offer strikingly different strategies for achieving their economic agendas. Mrs. Clinton — drawing on her husband’s first year in the White House, when Congress passed a deficit-reduction package without a single Republican vote — said Democrats needed to be prepared to fight similar battles in the years ahead.

“We’ve got to be really clear that this is a struggle, and this is just not a moment where everybody will see the world the way it should be seen and come together to solve these problems,” she said in a recent interview. “There are powerful forces at work in our society.”

Mr. Obama also talks about overcoming special interests, but he proposes to do so by changing the terms of the debate, energizing disaffected voters and forging a new majority in favor of his programs. He called climate change “a perfect example,” because he would try to persuade Americans to accept some short-term sacrifice while explaining that their energy costs did not have to increase nearly as much as utilities would suggest.

But he would start, he said, by trying to turn the discussion about taxes into an advantage for the Democrats during the general election campaign this year.

“We have to disaggregate tax policy between the wealthy and the working class or middle class,” he said. “We have to be able to say that we are going to at once raise taxes on some people and lower taxes on others.”

He added: “This has been one of the greatest rhetorical sleights of hand of the Republican Party, and it has been a great weakness of the Democratic Party.”

The leading Republican candidates have called for the extension of Mr. Bush’s income tax cuts, saying that their scheduled expiration by the end of 2010 would damage the economy.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton would extend only the tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 and then use the revenue from the higher taxes on the affluent to help pay for other programs. The Democrats note that high-income workers have received far larger pay increases than others over the past generation and have also had their tax rates cut by a much greater amount.

More so than any other candidate this year, Mr. Obama has surrounded his campaign’s policy team with professional economists (most of them, like him, still shy of their 50th birthdays), as opposed to former White House officials or Congress members.

Several Obama proposals have their roots in an academic field known as behavioral economics, which points out how often people can be tripped up by complex bureaucracies. Mr. Obama sometimes talks about an “iPod government” that can achieve its aims by presenting choices more simply. Under one proposal, Medicare would be required to present its prescription drug plans more clearly, to cut down on the number of people who sign up for a more expensive one than they need.

His interest in “ease, convenience and usability,” he said, came from two sources — his years as a community organizer in Chicago, where he often saw people struggle to understand the choices they had, and his own experience trying to make sense of his 401(k) plan.

Mr. Obama’s father was also an economist, from Kenya, who received his Ph.D. at Harvard. And Mr. Obama’s first job out of college was at a trade publication for multinational businesses, where he was a financial writer.

At times, he can sound like an economic analyst, weaving stories that link seemingly disparate topics. The weak income growth of the last generation, he said, caused many families to dip into their home equity, which led to the crisis in the mortgage market. That crisis, in turn, hurt the balance sheets of American financial firms and forced them to seek cash infusions from overseas governments, which has raised some national-security concerns.

“I don’t think anybody knew exactly how that would get us in trouble,” he said, referring to the increase in consumer debt over the last two decades. “But it was predictable that it would get us in trouble.”

This period includes the late 1990s, when wages rose significantly for workers up and down the income spectrum.

In the interview, Mr. Obama said Mr. Clinton and Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, took courageous steps in the early ’90s to lower the deficit and help make the record-long expansion that ran from 1991 to early 2001 possible.

He added that “some of the attacks on the Clinton administration from the left,” accusing it of operating as a group of corporate Democrats, had been unfair.

“They had an economic theory that in part was right — I do think fiscal discipline is important,” Mr. Obama said. “What he wasn’t able to do was address the emerging structural imbalance in our economy — partly due to globalization, partly due to technology and automation — where increasingly the benefits of economic growth were accruing to a smaller band of people.”

Mr. Obama said he would push for more investment in emerging industries, education and worker training — ideas that Mr. Clinton campaigned on in 1992 but mostly backed away from as president to repair the fiscal imbalance.

Mrs. Clinton also favors many of these ideas, in a sign that the Democratic Party has reached something of a consensus on its main economic policy goals. Indeed, Mr. Obama suggested that his cabinet would include a good number of Clinton administration alumni.

“I want an Alan Blinder, and I want a Jacob Hacker, and I want a Bob Rubin, and I want a Robert Reich,” he said, referring to a mix of centrist and more liberal Democratic economic advisers. “And I want a good robust argument about where we need to go.”

Barack Obama

"Kennedy Revels in Limelight as He Stumps for Obama"

NY Times:

SANTA FE, N.M. — “Are you glad to see me, Santa Fe?” Edward M. Kennedy roared.

“Yes!” Santa Fe roared back. There were whoops and “Viva Kennedy” chants from the overflow crowd at a community college. A man in the back held an “Obama 2008, Kennedy 2016” sign. “Estoy muy contento estar aquí en Santa Fe con usted,” Mr. Kennedy said in perfectly accented Spanish — that is, perfectly Boston-accented Spanish. (“I am very happy to be here in Santa Fe with you, ” he was trying to say, somewhat imperfectly.)

But Mr. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, is ever game for trying, and the crowd ate it up. The white-haired liberal legend with a bad back, halting speech and worn brown shoes has been called a “lion in winter” so many times that he has the political cliché version of frostbite.

Yet Mr. Kennedy, 75, is hot, hot, hot on the trail, stumping for Senator Barack Obama, who was 15 months old when Mr. Kennedy began his Senate career in 1962. He is drawing raucous crowds, invoking the family legacy, working the lunch crowd at the Flying Tortilla in Santa Fe and getting the kitchen staff together for a photo.

Arriving at a rally in East Los Angeles on Friday, Mr. Kennedy was swarmed by a couple of dozen reporters and the like, a big, fuzzy boom mike hovering over his head, autograph hounds and cellphone-camera paparazzi at the perimeter.

“It’s like when Tony Bennett suddenly became hip again after the kids discovered him,” observed Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist and former Kennedy aide who attended the rally. “It’s the same thing with Kennedy. He’s MTV now. And instead of jazz clubs, he’s doing the Hollywood Bowl.”

It all started on Monday when Mr. Kennedy endorsed Mr. Obama — a decent and perhaps surprising political story, given Mr. Kennedy’s ties to the Clintons. It also had symbolic consequence (elder statesman anoints up-and-comer).

Then Mr. Kennedy appeared with Mr. Obama Monday at American University in Washington and drew screeches from the college students whose notion of “Kennedy” growing up was more apt to have been the MTV V.J. rather than the political dynasty. He has always had a knack for transcending generations, but this was different, bigger.

“There seems to be a special kind of feeling this time,” Mr. Kennedy said.

The clamor continued around the senator as he took his act solo to New Mexico (Thursday) and California (Friday), hitting largely Hispanic sites, seemingly having the time of his life. He sang in Spanish (“Jalisco”) on a Latino radio show in Los Angeles. He challenged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California (a nephew-in-law) to arm-wrestle on the air for the presidency (the senator for Obama, the Governator for Senator John McCain).

Between rallies, Mr. Kennedy indulged in a fancy dinner in Beverly Hills on Thursday night with his wife, Victoria, an aide and two reporters. The maître d’ came over and told a slightly off-color story about Ronald Reagan, who used to sit with Nancy, in the very same booth. (Blasphemy alert: Ted Kennedy is sitting in Reagan’s booth!) Steve Martin and Diane Keaton were at the next table and the senator labored over to pay respects.

On the way out, Mr. Martin stopped by and said, “This dinner is compliments of the Republican Party,” whatever that meant, and Mr. Kennedy belly-laughed politely before returning to his veal.

On the stump, Mr. Kennedy began his set with a surefire applause line: One year from now, George W. Bush will be out of the White House.

He rarely mentioned Hillary Rodham Clinton by name, but veiled shots were unmistakable. He praised Mr. Obama’s experience, resisting the big-money law firm jobs out of law school to work as a community organizer.

“Now that’s the kind of experience I want,” Mr. Kennedy said, a clear reference to Mrs. Clinton’s mantra about her “35-years of experience.” He praised Mr. Obama’s willingness to play a visible role in the debate over immigration (implying Mrs. Clinton did not) and opposing the Iraq war from the beginning (ditto).

Per senatorial — and, in this case, family — birthright, Mr. Kennedy has had presidential notions of his own in the past. He lost to President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 Democratic primaries, then returned to the Senate, immersed himself in legislative life and liberal interests. Only two senators in history — Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia — have served longer.

But Mr. Kennedy has hardly been cleansed of the presidential germ, at least on behalf of others. He has endorsed Democrats in past primaries, including his Massachusetts colleague, Senator John Kerry, for whom he campaigned tirelessly in 2004.

But friends and family members say there is a different feeling this time, a level of intensity that seems deeper, even sentimental.

“This involvement seems more personal to him somehow,” said Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island and Mr. Kennedy’s son. “It’s like an opportunity for him to connect with the touchstone of his brothers’ legacy.”

Indeed, the comparisons of Mr. Obama to John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy may be slightly overstated, except that Mr. Kennedy himself is also making them, at least implicitly. “Fifty years ago, another young senator changed history,” he said at a rally in Albuquerque. He mentioned past visits he made to New Mexico for his brothers’ campaigns.

“Well, I think my brothers are on a pedestal unto themselves,” Mr. Kennedy said in a brief interview after the Santa Fe rally. “But Barack is a very inspiring figure to me.”

On the trail, Mr. Kennedy does not so much walk as lumber. His back is perpetually hunched, his face in a grimace, as if he is weighed down by so much baggage, burden, legacy.

But he is quick on his feet, too. While he was being introduced Thursday in Albuquerque, a fire alarm started wailing and a computerized voice urged everyone to evacuate. No one knew what to do. “I can’t think of a nicer crowd to go with,” Mr. Kennedy exclaimed, popping out of his seat. Everyone laughed, the fire alarm stopped, and all was good.

Later, Mr. Kennedy was at the airport, heading toward a Learjet leased for him by the Obama campaign. He and his wife clasped hands for the benefit of a photographer back-pedaling on the tarmac.

“Pretend we’re lovebirds,” Mrs. Kennedy said to her husband, playing to the camera.

“Yes, love birds, love birds,” he agreed.

“We’re heading onto the big bird,” she said.

And the Liberal Lion was actually giggling.

Barack Obama

Kerry on Obama in Seattle: Print Views

"Kerry says Obama's résumé comparable to JFK's, Roosevelt's"--Seattle Times.

"Kerry touts Obama in UW appearance"--Seattle P-I.

Barack Obama