John Edwards Endorses Barack Obama

Message from Barack on Edwards' Endorsement

From Barack Obama:

I have some very exciting news.

My good friend John Edwards is endorsing our campaign and joining our movement for change.

We're here in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- and if you receive this message in time, you can probably turn on your TV and be part of the moment.

I'm deeply honored by John's support. He is a true leader who dedicated his career to improving the lives of ordinary Americans.

John ran a strong, principled campaign for president, focusing on a number of important issues where we share common ground -- universal health care, bringing our troops home from Iraq, and eliminating poverty in America.

The way he ran his campaign was also important. He ran in a way that reflected our shared conviction that we need to fundamentally change politics.

Like our campaign, John's campaign never accepted donations from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs.

Let's welcome John Edwards to the campaign with an outpouring of the kind of grassroots support that is bringing our political process back to the people.

Make a donation of whatever you can afford now, and if you choose, include your own note to Senator Edwards. I'll make sure he gets them:

https://donate.barackobama.com/edwards

Thank you for all that you're doing,

Barack

Edwards Weighs in on Clinton MLK Statements

Watch out. Clinton tears coming in 3, 2, 1!!

Here is John Edwards' statement on Hillary's MLK stumble:

"As someone who grew up in the segregated South, I feel an enormous amount of pride when I see the success that Sen. Barack Obama is having in this campaign," Edwards said during an appearance at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Sumter, S.C.

Edwards continued: "I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change came not through the Rev. Martin Luther King, but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that. Those who believe that real change starts with Washington politicians have been in Washington too long -- and are living in a fairy tale."

Read more here.

Inside the numbers

Here are the numbers broken down from Barack's Iowa win. Hillary and Edwards harp about Obama's "electability," but what is conveniently overlooked is that Obama has the capacity to EXPAND the base of the Democratic Party in that he is a crossover candidate.

A Democrat can't win by just appealing to Democrats, which is where Hillary and Edwards are pretty much stuck. Obama brought in NEW voters who had never caucused before, thereby raising the number of voting DEMOCRATS in Iowa to almost twice the number of Republicans.

If Obama can do this across the nation, then the Democrats would be in a secure position to take the presidency. The Oblogger has written extensively about Obama's electability.

Here are the numbers from the latest Zogby poll. Obama is the one who is the hardest to beat:

A new Zogby poll shows that Barack Obama is the most electable of the top three Democratic candidates, followed by John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

Of the three Dems, Obama is the only one to beat five Republicans in all match-ups. Hillary loses to Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, while Edwards can beat Huckabee but loses to Giuliani and McCain.

The full numbers are available after the jump.

Obama (D) 53%, Romney (R) 35%
Obama (D) 47%, Huckabee (R) 42%
Obama (D) 48%, Giuliani (R) 39%
Obama (D) 47%, McCain (R) 43%
Obama (D) 52%, Thompson (R) 36%

Clinton (D) 46%, Romney (R) 44%
Huckabee (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 43%
Giuliani (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 42%
McCain (R) 49%, Clinton (D) 42%
Clinton (D) 48%, Thompson (R) 42%

Edwards (D) 50%, Romney (R) 38%
Edwards (D) 47%, Huckabee (R) 41%
Giuliani (R) 45%, Edwards (D) 44%
McCain (R) 46%, Edwards (D) 42%
Edwards (D) 51%, Thompson (R) 35%

Simply put: If the Democrats want to WIN the White House, they would rally around Obama as the nominee. Hillary Clinton is a sure loser. Her negatives and polling numbers put her in the same realm as John Kerry, able to win the Democratic nomination, unable to win the presidency.

Also, Hillary does not have the capacity to cross over. Republicans can't stand her. And you can't even count on the woman vote, because as Iowa demonstrated last night, Obama pulled from more women voters than Hillary.

Here are the numbers from the Iowa caucus:

To: Interested Parties
From: The Obama Campaign
RE: Inside the Numbers of Obama’s Win in Iowa
DA: January 4, 2008

Last night, Barack Obama made history in Iowa with a dramatic and decisive victory. He won by bringing an unprecedented number of voters into the process, including thousands of Republicans and Independents who registered as Democrats in order to support Obama.

The entrance polls show just how dominating Obama’s win was and dispel some myths about his candidacy.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#val=IADEM

Some facts:

• Obama beat Clinton among women 35% to 30%
• Obama beat Edwards among voters in union households 30%-24%
• Obama beat Clinton and Edwards among voters of almost every income level (Obama and Clinton tied among voters who make $15-30,000)
• As many voters age 17-29 as voters 65 and older participated last night -- in previous years senior participation has been 5-times greater than younger voters.
• Obama beat Edwards and Clinton among voters who want change (51%-20%-19%)
• Despite countless attacks and hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative mail, TV, and radio, Obama beat Clinton and Edwards (34%-30%-27%) among voters who say health care is the most important issue
• Obama won among those who said the economy was the most important issue (36%-26%-26%)
• Obama won over Clinton and Edwards (35%-26%-17%) among those who said Iraq was the most important issue
• Won across the ideological spectrum – winning among liberals, moderates and conservatives
• Won among high income and lower income voters among voters with household income below $50,000 (34%-32%-19%) and among those over $50,000 (41%-19%-28%)
• Also won among the 82% of voters who said Pakistan was “very or somewhat important”

If the Democrats want to win, they would stop being stuck on race and rush to vote for Obama as the nominee.

News Will Come in Fast!!!

And it's not going to be pretty. Please be patient with unattractive formatting gotten from emails!

Des Moines, IA (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama surged to a 4 point lead over John Edward in Iowa, with Hillary Clinton fading to third place just hours before the first presidential nominating contest, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=4076176&page=1

Obama and Edwards gained ground overnight in the tracking poll, and Clinton fell four points to third place - a finish that, if it held, would deal a dramatic setback to the one-time Democratic front-runner.

The new Zogby tracking poll shows a clear break toward Obama and away from Hillary.

If Obama beats Hillary by 7% in "Iowa", it's a landslide and Obama has a whole new narrative that says: "Iowa proves Obama can bring together a governing coalition that can end the partisan gridlock and change our country and the world." However, this is based on the 2004 turn out model. If a few Independents, youth and Republicans show up for Obama on top of this, the entire world will be much different tomorrow morning.

"There is a clear Clinton fade," pollster John Zogby said. "None of it has been dramatic, but it has been steady."

Obama 32%, Clinton 25%, Edwards 24% - Des Moines Register's Final ('Golden') Poll

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has widened his lead in Iowa over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards heading into Thursday's nominating caucuses, according to The Des Moines Register's final Iowa Poll before the 2008 nominating contests, also referred to as the "Golden Poll".

The findings mark the largest lead of any of the Democratic candidates in the Register's poll all year, showing Obama with a lead larger than the survey's margin of sampling error, which is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Obama Grabs Lead In Iowa

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0264367920080103

Real Clear Politics Iowa Average: Obama +4.2

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ia/iowa_democratic_caucus-208.html

Intrade Real Time Quotes To Win Iowa

Obama 61%, Clinton 24%, Edwards 15%

Biden Aide: "Right now, Obama gets our support because we're more inline with his vision of foreign policy than any of the other candidates, and besides, we like him and how he's run his campaign."

Biden Likely To Throw Support To Obama

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-davis/obama-on-track-to-win-cau_b_79308.html

Edwards Supporters... I Don't Get It

An observation from numerous conversations with some Edwards supporters:

In discussions, many Edwards supporters claim the same argument, that America is not "ready" for a black or woman president, so therefore Edwards is the only one who could win.

Which in itself is a racist and sexist way of thinking...

Edwards is positioning himself as the more "progressive" candidate, but his supporters have the most regressive views.

I don't get it. Label this one "confused."

Just to show I'm open minded...

This is from the John Edwards campaign, but it captures Hillary Clinton's triple backflips during the debate:

Barack Tied with Clinton in Iowa Poll

From Time magazine:

Huckabee Surges, Edwards Fades
By Jay Newton-Small/Washington

The latest still photo from the slow motion, inter-party electoral horse race known as Iowa is in — and it looks like John Edwards is losing steam on the Democratic side while Mike Huckabee is charging at the GOP frontrunners.

The University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll, released at 8 a.m. Monday morning, shows Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a heated battle on the Democratic side. Clinton leads the poll with 28.9% while Obama garnered 26.6%. John Edwards trails with 20%, a 6-point drop from the last Hawkeye poll in August.

For Edwards, who has basically been living in Iowa (and who parlayed a second place finish there in 2004 into a spot on the Democratic ticket), the results have to be disconcerting. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he has few other strongholds, and a poor showing in Iowa could place his candidacy in serious jeopardy.

On the bright side is that the people who do support Edwards have a history of showing up when it counts. Nearly 76% of Edwards' poll supporters attended the 2004 caucus, while 58% of Clinton's and 55% of Obama's supporters made the trip four years ago. "If we only look at caucus-goers who are almost certain to attend, we find that Edwards makes up the gap with Obama and Clinton, and moves clearly ahead," said David Redlawsk, the poll's director and an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa. Of course, Bill Clinton skipped the caucuses in 1992, so this is the first time a Clinton is really running in the state, while Obama was an unknown almost everywhere four years ago. Another bad omen for Edwards: only 7.9% of Democrats polled said they are "very likely" to change their minds between now and January 3, when both parties caucus in Iowa.

On the Republican side, the Hawkeye poll showed that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has widened his overall lead by 8 percentage points, to 36.2%. But Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, has gained ground despite spending just $1.7 million compared to Romney's $53.6 million. Huckabee is up from less than 2 % in the same poll in August to 12.8%, putting him in a statistical tie for second place with Rudy Giuliani who garnered 13.1%. Giuliani had spent $30.2 million as of September 30, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

"If Huckabee can motivate religious conservatives to attend the caucuses in large numbers, he may well threaten Romney and close some of the overall gap," said Redlawsk. About 44% of Iowa Republican caucus-goers consider themselves Evangelical or born again.

The latest Hawkeye Poll comes less than a week after both parties set their caucus dates for January 3, the earliest presidential tests ever. The truncated schedule means that candidates will have to finalize their pitches before the holiday season. It also makes candidates vulnerable to any last-minute news events or surprises since they will not have time to respond after the holidays. And given the how long the race has already gone on, many Iowans have begun to make up their minds: overall, less than 10 % remain undecided.

This doesn't bode well for those outside the top tier. On the Democratic side, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's support declined from 9.4 % in August to 7.2% while Delaware Senator Joe Biden was the only other candidate to break the 2% threshold. On the Republican side, Fred Thompson stands fourth with 11.4% followed by Arizona Senator John McCain with 6%.

The poll of 285 likely Republican caucus goers and 306 likely Democratic caucus goers was conducted October 17 to 24. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8 percentage points on the Republican side and 5.5 percentage points on the Democratic side.