we are basically preparing for GOTV weekend while also dealing with two -- count them, two -- local appearances with barack, the man that everyone on the mainline (even hillary's supporters) have been clamoring to see!  you can guess what is important to me.  i can't understand why everyone else wants to see barack!!!

i went into the city yesterday in order to pick up what i call wickets for yard signs.  other people call them frames or posts, and i'm sure there are other names for them as well.  we got a delivery of the sleeves (or actual yard sign itself) but no wickets.  so i volunteered to go downtown to pick them up, in part because i figured that i'd stop by constitution center to see how the debate stage looked.

when i got downtown, i parked in the press section.  since my tripods were prominently visible in the car, and the illinois plates, i didn't anticipate any problems.  i went in and stuck my head in and finally saw one of the setup crew that i knew was around.  "i have no tickets," he yelled across the room.  i laughed.  "not looking for tickets," i replied.  relieved, he invited me in.  after introducing me to the crew, he took me around.  it was a lot smaller than i imagined (i didn't see the "overflow" section upstairs).  everything but the backdrops was lit up.  i wasn't allowed to take pictures, although an empty stage might not make a great pic.  regardless, i had brought the camera for that purpose.  "can't i get a picture of the crew," i asked.  nope.

we went out to get a philly cheesesteak, which was one of my missions for the day.  one volunteer in wynnewood had taken me to jim's at 62nd and noble (on the southwest side of philly, which i admit was very good), but i still wanted a philly cheesesteak from a street vendor.  of course, there were plenty around the constitution center.

i drove up to 15th and sansom and parked in the parking garage across the street from the state headquarters.  the office space is on the 4th floor, but by this time, i felt like i was late.  so i tried to run up the stairs -- only to find that the stairs took you only to the second floor.  so i hit the elevator button and found the people i sprinted by.  grrrr.

i'm in a hurry, but the pennsylvania state headquarters has the same kind of "calm culture" as the obama headquarters in chicago.  so they weren't expecting me.  "calm down" was the first thing they said to me.  ooooooookay.  i couldn't remember the name of the person i was supposed to see, even though i had called (before stopping at the constitution center) to find out (again).  actually, it was jake, but i was confident that was not the person i was supposed to see.  after we straightened out my confusion, we loaded up the car with the wickets or posts.

the funny thing is that the garage attendant hid my cars on top of the back wheel.  but after we put in the yard sign posts, the car sat rather low -- and we couldn't get our hand in to grab the keys.  fortunately, i had already paid, so the next half hour that we spent trying to get the keys wasn't on my dime.  the garage owner or manager finally helped.  we "held up" the car while the attendent took a newspaper and swatted the keys from their hiding place.  "that's the hardest $8 we made today," he said.

i personally found the debate uneventful.  we were expecting fireworks, because hillary desperately needed to land a knock-out punch in order to get back into the race.  with hillary's supporters here in pennsylvania basically accepting that barack will be the nominee, she has to shake her own supporters of that impression before she can get back into the race.  but hillary didn't attack, even if the moderators did, and the mood of montgomery county this morning was that barack survived and did what he needed to do.

what everyone wants to know -- the question of the week -- is how are we doing?  i can't tell, because i only have the impression left from direct contact with voters, but i have a couple of general impressions.  first of all, there are still an extraordinary number of undecided voters with less than a week left before the election.  perhaps they were waiting for the debate, but this remains a troubling sign for hillary.  hillary is universally known -- people know what they are getting by voting for hillary -- so anyone who has not decided to vote for her by now undoubtedly has very serious questions about her candidacy.

for many of the pennsylvanians that i've talked to, the primary question is, can she win?  while barack may think that hillary is electable, that view doesn't seem to be widely shared by these undecided voters.   with hillary's negatives at unprecedented highs (at least, i don't recall seeing her negatives at 56%), it's easy to understand why democrats are leary of nominating hillary.  but she doesn't see it (famously telling bill richardson that barack can't win!).  

the advantage that barack's campaign has is that, even if the bitterly divisive primary means that john mccain is elected president, barack's campaign model actually strengthens the democratic party instead of dividing it.  sure, hillary's supporters may feel alienated from the party because she didn't make the case for her supporters.  but the fact that barack has taken this grassroots model across the country, based his campaign upon local support and supplemented it with new voters, new democrats and new enthusiasm, strengthens the party for 2010.  

also, barack has made great inroads into the demographics he needs for a win in the fall.  white males, especially, are not only open to barack's candidacy but seem to favor him, according to the recent pennsylvania polls that i've seen.  this is important, not just for pennsylvania, but for the general, where winning white males of middle income may be critical to winning the election.  

another thing that is increasingly obvious is that this model works.  hillary's campaign model has failed repeatedly and it seems incredibly risky to assume that she can win an election when she'll only have one change. it seems that, in order for hillary to win, she needs a strong governor in control of the political apparatus of a state supporting here or a party in which she's gained control.  but you can count those states on one hand.  barack's model is a proven success to pennsylvania voters, since they watched us knock on doors to register new voters, and then see the results of turning montgomery county from red to blue.  the montgomery county democratic party didn't do that, and they didn't really believe it was possible.  they were probably right.  as long as they were looking for democrats to look and think just like them, they weren't going to expand the party.  but barack's candidacy opened up the party, not only by including new people but also by intentionally reaching out to the rest of the electorate.  we should all be democrats, is the thinking of barack, it seems.

what will pennsylvania do?  hillary has extraordinarily strong institutional advantages in the state.  rendell has been holding local officials' feet to the fire in order to boost her vote here.  given the power that the governor is thought to have, this fact alone -- that the rendell machine supports hillary -- should give her the best possible chance to win.  if hillary can win anywhere, it should be pennsylvania.  since she has won a couple of other states, one would think she is the heavy favorite.

and the fact is, hillary has to win pennsylvania.  if she loses, and perhaps if she can't blow it out here, she's done.  democrats already think this race has gone on too long, and interesting stance from a state that may decide it all.  they recognize that barack will be the nominee.  and that impression pervades everything here.

barack will be in downtown philly tomorrow night and then in downtown wynnewood on saturday.  you can still help barack win pennsylvania.  donate here to reunite the democratic party behind a strong nominee who can beat mccain; you can help barack win in pennsylvania and across the country by making phone calls now.  with the pennsylvania democratic party intervening in the democratic process, anything you can do to compensate for their interference would be welcome!