to Iowa Democrats seeking their support--more than Hillary made. Someone I know who was active in Hillary's campaign told me she thinks that's one reason why Obama got so many party people to endorse him. He just worked harder to get their support.

What she told me is consistent with this account:

http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary .do?diaryId=1779

After the Clinton rally last night in Iowa City, a Clinton precinct captain sighed in frustration and, insisting on anonymity, shared this story.  The precinct captain's friend, a school principal, had said he was trying to choose between Clinton and Obama.  He was on his way into the rally when his cell phone rang.  It was Obama.

Not a campaign staffer, a volunteer, or a robo-call.  It was Barack Obama himself.

The personal request proved to be sufficient, as the principal pledged his support directly to the candidate, turned on his heel, and walked out of the Clinton event.

On one level it really makes me angry that any voter would make a decision this way. I've never gotten a personal phone call from John Edwards, nor would I ever expect one. Nor would I drift toward another candidate who called me on my cell phone.

But if we're talking about playing the political game, I have to admit that Obama played it well in Iowa.

Wow.  Just wow.  You really told it like it is.  

Unfortunately, I've taken to calling the Obama's fans his "followers" rather than his "supporters" -- because they act like followers, blind to his problems, blind to political realities, blind to the qualities and reasoning of those who support (gasp) Edwards or Clinton.

And, throughout the Internet, the Obama followers' comments are mostly vicious attacks.  The immaturity is disturbing.  It's impossible to have a rational discussion at the big orange place -- even Peter Daou, the Clinton campaign's Internet director, gets attacked viciously.  Shocking given that Peter was one of the finest essayists on Bush/Cheney for Salon magazine and built up an extraordinary blog-linking service for Salon. But Peter's rich history is utterly forgotten just because he's working for Sen. Clinton and his comments -- which are all of them polite and rational -- get troll-rated out of existence.  It's sickening.

That place has really jumped the shark and they don't seem to know it.  

I saw this quote from Hildebrand discussed earlier on Talkleft and figured that BTD would be cross-posting his diary here.  Thanks for bringing the issue up.  

A cynical view of what campaigning is supposed to be about, for sure.  

If a candidate sits in people's LIVING ROOMS to court their votes, isn't that the best campaigning one can possibly do?  Obviously, it is not possible to conduct one-on-one visits into living rooms across the country, but isn't that the type of direct engagement and exposure to and talking with average people that we want to see from a candidate?  What exactly IS the supposedly superior way Obama approaches people?  In huge arenas from a bandstage, en masse?  From a gigantic billboard, looking down upon us ants?

Thumbing your nose at the most immediate and intimate contact with voters that one could possibly envision is not a good way to endear those sitting in our living rooms to the "unapproachable."

That's not a "photo-op".  Do you see those four little black things sitting on the table?  Those are microphones.  This was an economic roundtable discussion to put a personal face on the economic downslide which has been written about, played out in front of the press.  It was to give the press a chance to hear personal stories much like the ones that every candidate hear as they move across the country.  The participants were:

In turn, the four Valley voters put a human face to the economic problems he says are facing America's middle class.

Kerry Bryant, an African-American woman who has stumbled into credit-card debt helping finance her son's college education.

Carlos Garcia, a Latino school maintenance worker who has been turned down repeatedly trying to consolidate his debts and worries about how his high school-age son will pay for college.

Gustavo Lizarde, a Latino auto repair shop owner who has fallen increasingly into debt because he can no longer pay for the health insurance he needs.

And Vitello, 52, a registered nurse, concerned about the improvements she needs on her house and about the adjustable interest-only $335,000 loan on the 980-square-foot home in the 14300 block of Miranda Street.

People probably won't stop saying or thinking that Obama is a different kind of politician or that his brand of politics is cleaner than say Bush's or Clinton's.  People who support Obama have already made up their minds about him.  Most of them couldn't tell you the difference between his and Hillary's healthcare plans.  But they like and trust him on some gut level.  This is what modern campaigns are about.  

This gets back to the "who would you rather have a beer with" question.  Tell me again what exactly the heck that has to do with being President.  But it doesn't matter.  People want to connect with their elected officials in some way that is perhaps creepy and definitely unrealistic.

Nevertheless, it counts for a lot of political capital and wins or loses elections.

So, go ahead, keep showing Obama with Rezko or Obama with some folks around a white table.  Doesn't matter.  The people that support Obama have their minds made up.  So do the people who can't stand him.

Last spring, I was strongly considering Obama as my candidate, but I got a sense from both Obamas (Barack and Michelle) by their statements and even body language that they believe that they are better than the rest of us. "To know me is to love me" and all the rest.

Look, bottomline if Barack was good in smaller settings, then his campaign would do more of the roundtables. But based upon reports by the media (which normally favors him), he's just not good at conveying empathy for people's concerns. I remember reading media reports of small roundtables with people telling him their healthcare concerns and he looked very uncomfortable and had a hard time relating to these people. It wasn't just one account like this, but several accounts.

Quite frankly, I don't believe that any of the candidates have that "I feel your pain" empathetic quality to the same degree that Bill Clinton had it in the 1990s. I'll give you an example. I wasn't impressed with any of the candidates during the townhall portion of the Las Vegas debate a few months ago. I recall a question by a man who asked about racial profiling at airports. The candidate who responded to the question didn't offer "I'm sorry for the way you've been treated; it must have been awful for you." The answer just contained rote policy prescriptions that got sidetracked to blaming Bush for Guantenemo Bay etc.

Maybe the candidates were having an off night in Las Vegas that night and perhaps they are better one on one. I don't know. I haven't met any of the candidates.

But back to Hildeband's comments. I do find it interesting that Hildeband took note of HRC's living room strategy approach in Nevada. That must mean that the Obama camp thought it was highly effective. If that's the case, as a HRC supporter, I hope that she continues with this campaign strategy. If the Obama campaign is complaining about what the Clinton campaign is doing, that's a good sign for the Clinton campaign to keep doing what they're doing....

This is all that the Hillary supporters have at this point. Nah, nah,nah,nah your candidate does all the sh*t my candidate does.  Talk about cynical.  The country's whole political elite needs a major overhaul, and that includes the Clinton faction of the Democratic Party.  Hillary will not provide that overhaul.  Edwards was the best shot to do so, but he's fading.  Obama, because of his long career in grassroots activism and electoral politics (i.e. NOT as First Lady), because of his relative youth, is a better prospect than Hillary

Yes, Obama has a lot of energetic, young supporters who say over the top things. But then again, all the campaigns have a few nasty supporters out there...

Obama supporters are mistaken if they believe that Obama is pure...in a binary sense of that word. He has been quite the attacker this whole time, but with his own, unique, subtle, almost velvet touch. He is almost obtuse in his attacking style...definitely not direct. I have never seen anything quite like it, quite the skill.

The degeneration of the Obama/Clinton contest into "racial politics" has been a matter of both campaigns doing things that they should not have been doing.  However, the surrogates for the Clinton campaign probably hold the edge in terms of doing the wrong thing in this department...they might have a 9-5 lead.

And this destructive meme has been stoked by a complicit MSM and blogosphere. This is NOT helping the party.  And I know that if Hillary wins the nomination, the "racial comments" by her campaign have probably lost me at least 10 volunteers around here...volunteers that would have helped with our November efforts.

Approximately 70% of the political activists, the foot soldiers of the Democratic party, seem to be supporting Obama or Edwards. Hillary's scorched earth, racial stuff is going to cause a lot of them to NOT work for us on the presidential, and that will hurt.  

If Hillary were to become the nominee, does she REALLY need these foot soldiers?  I would say yes. If you think November 2008 is going to be easy, you are kidding yourself. We will need ALL of Obama's foot soldiers, not half of them.

To be honest, he's still a "mystery" to me- at first I did think of him as this very honest Abe Lincoln type who was trying to be above the fray and give out the good vibes although woefully short on experience and judgment.  But now the way he accused the Clintons of racism, Rezko, his "Chicago" style politics statement, his ducking of votes, the "present" votes, the "oops" votes- I think I've been a bit conned and he's just like every other politician- and I'm not saying I blame him for that- politics is a NASTY business- perhaps that's how you have to proceed, I DON'T KNOW.  The thing I do know is he's not who or what I thought.

Here's how the L.A. Times portrayed this obvious photo-op attempt created by Obama to play race politics over substantial issue based politics.  Notice the constant references to race and gender in the article.  Notice how it played into the race/gender war scenario which was what the press was interested about at the time.:

Obama's backyard economics session

The deck is stacked in favor of big banks and against workers, he tells voters at a Van Nuys home.

By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 17, 2008

Barack Obama sat in registered nurse Mimi Vitello's sunny backyard in Van Nuys and listened as she and three other local voters talked about their worries over home loans and credit card debt. The presidential hopeful listened intently and said the mortgage and credit card industries were skewed against working Americans.

"The deck has been stacked in favor of the big banks and the big financial companies and not for the consumers and homeowners," he told the residents.

They sat around a table outside Vitello's modest home, which she bought with an interest-only loan. Now that loan worries her. "My income is not going to jump ahead, and here comes my interest-only [payment hikes] in a couple years," Vitello said.

Obama noted that foreclosures could cost California's economy $23 billion, and he blamed the federal government for not regulating lenders.

"It's an example of how when the federal government falls down on the job and is listening more to the special interests than it is to ordinary working families that we end up getting into these kinds of crises," he said.

Obama has proposed creating a $10-billion fund to help prevent foreclosures, eliminate some taxes and fees for families who must sell, and offer counseling to homeowners.

He also proposed changes in the consumer credit card industry. "People are getting caught in a credit card system that is unfair," he said, faulting "teaser rates" that skyrocket, interest charged on late fees and hidden fees.

His words resonated with Gustavo Lizarde, an auto repair shop owner who has tapped his credit cards to keep the business running. He said teaser rates that went from 0% to 29.9% forced him into a spiral of debt that made him unable to afford health insurance. "Now what I have to do is refinance my home, so I can get out of debt, so I can breathe," he said.

Obama told the gathering that he no longer had credit card debt, but that was not always the case. "Five years ago, before I had spoken at the convention, before my book sales took off, etc., we were in same situation," he said.

"My wife and I borrowed to go to college and law school because we don't come from wealthy families. When I got out of law school and we got married, our combined student loan debt was higher than our mortgage," Obama said. "And so it took us 10 years to pay that off, which meant that we couldn't save."

Obama proposed creating a credit card rating system so that consumers could make more informed choices, and banning companies from raising interest rates without new agreements with borrowers.

"I opened this diary with a quote from an Obama supporter who disparages Hillary Clinton for doing things right."

That's fair.  You're critizing Obama for hitting Hillary on the same sort of campaign format that Obama has used.  Okay.

But most of the complaint's against Obama's "attacks" that I see involve an isolated quote from some staffer, who may or may not be off the reservation.  Which stand in stark contrast to the systematic statements made by the Clintons on any number of issues attacking Obama.  I mean, it seems that the point of your diary is that Obama is no worse than Hillary, but do you really believe that he attacks her in the same systematic and dishonest way that she attacks him?

Put another way, if this campaign were between Obama and Edwards instead of Clinton Obama and Edwards, do you really believe that it would be anywhere near this nasty?  I cetainly don't.

All I can say is the Church of Obama. It is a cult we are dealing with.

None. Honest.  I have this from his supporters who had followed him into the john and collected his actual feces for a keepsake.

I always read your posts and diaries with interest, but I must say I don't really understand your point here.  Of course I think Obama is "better" than the other candidates, in the sense that I think he would make the best president.  That's why I'm supporting him and you've supported Edwards in the past.  

Now, reasonable people obviously disagree about who is best equipped to the lead the country and Obama has plenty of flaws.  At the end of the day, they're all politicians -- not saints.  

That being said, I don't think it is sanctimoneous to argue, as i have in the past, that Obama does represent something new, if still not perfect.  If the standard is he has to transcend being a politician at all to represent a new approach, he obviously fails.  But that kind of either/or just doesn't make sense to me.  

Then again, I suppose I'm just one of those "annoying Obama supporters" that are apparently monolithic.  

I really can't stand the moral superiority garbage for Obama's supporters. Now I'm not an Obama hater at all, but all canididates have their flaws. Obama has changed his positions on issues like healthcare. He has not been a true crusader against the Iraq war from the begining like he wants to seem. And he was hypocritical for bashing unions in Iowa for supporting Clinton and Edwards, but embracing them when they attacked Clinton in Nevada.

I'm Hillary supporter, and I obviously don't claim she's perfect either, but enough of the moral superiority garbage. Obama is a politician like the rest of them. His ambition is certainly not any lesser than that of Hillary Clinton, or anyone else running for President.

Obama exists as a candidate because the anti-Clinton MSM created him.

The Iowa caucus was a hoot--it no more represented Iowa itself than it did the rest of the nation.

Tens of thousands of bused-in operatives, paid for by Oprah Winfrey and blogosphere megamillions--literal outsiders, GOP and indie crossovers, held together with one common thread: stop the Clintons from returning to power.

Obama was their tool--and remains their tool.  He never had a realistic chance of winning the United States presidency.  

The electorate by November would be so polarized by his race-baiting and naiveness than anyone running against him would prevail.  The GOP and its punditocracy has always known this fact.

The MSM has continually overlooked Obama's glaring shortcomings, and the fact that he has the least amount of national experience of any candidate for the Chief Executive office, ever--while, as ever, damning the Clintons, made Obama a gift to the GOP that kept on giving.

But New Hampshire, Michigan, and Nevada--in other words, reality--put a damper on their plans for this absolute "fantasy."

And now all the anti-Clinton pundits are left with is South Carolina, which, as the African-American candidate within a largely African-American electorate there, now means for Obama next to nothing in moving forward.

Thank the Lord, after Tuesday's Florida primary, and certainly after Super Tuesday, reality will trump fantasy.

Spin can only carry outsiders storming the gates of Democratic primaries so far.  Ultimately, a clear majority of core Democrats decide their standard-bearers.  And this year, they are not trading in the Clintons for the untested and unvetted Obama.

This is a ridiculous diary.  There are over 100 comments to it, perhaps 3 of which are intelligent and thoughtful.  I am so f'ing sick of the petty BS that permeates this site.  

The Clinton supporters have me all but ready to give up and just not vote or better yet change my registration to GREEN.  I could name 10 HRC supporters here just in this thread alone who are so ill informed as to make me truly sad for the future of my party and my country.  I actually read several comments claiming HRC is the true progressive in the pack..... AGH !!!!!!!  (me screaming again).

HRC progressive? give me a f'ing break  There are no true progressives in this race, but JRE comes the closest of them all.

Obama is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the point being missed by HRC supporters is that some people in the democratic party care more about winning the White House than the nomination.  Obama is NOT HRC and for some people that is enough.  I don't know why it is so hard for HRC supporters to understand that a big part of the democratic party and the nation as a whole just don't want another Clinton period, whether it is  Job destroying NAFTA promoting, gay  baiting don't ask dont tell, DOMA signing William Jefferson, or his DLC enabling partner Hillary.

There is a huge part of this country who simply will not vote for Clinton.  Don't you f'ing get it?  Some of us don't think we can waste another minute failing to turn this country around. Knowing all this I am still amazed how quickly so called "progressives" will throw the White House, Congress and Senate under the bus, just to nominate a candidate that will tear our party and country apart.

VOTE JRE FOR AMERICA