A few days ago Jerome posted something that irked me, that somehow there was some "Obama of February" who no longer exists. I desperately wanted to believe he was wrong and tonight I feel confident that he was. Both in the electoral results and in his oratory tonight Barack Obama was every bit the electrifying and paradigm shifting candidate that he was in winning 11 primaries in a row in February. He showed a side of himself in that speech that clearly demonstrated why he is running, what he stands for, and why he loves the country. And he returned again and again to the notion of uniting the country across all manner of artificial boundaries. This was the Obama that electrified the country earlier in this campaign and I hope that Jerome will wake up Wednesday morning and concede this point.

And to top it off I think it was the gas tax argument that put him back on his game. As much as Jerome wanted to believe that it was a winning issue for clinton I think tonight's results show that Obama got the better of this argument by trusting the American people to understand the truth.

What a night!!!!

Patrick Ruffini, a GOPer but perceptive web techie, projects that Obama's Campaign is going to hit $60M in fundraising for the month of February alone:

 According to my initial projections off this crowdsourced spreadsheet of Obama donations I set up after the Wisconsin victory, Obama has already raised at least $45 million for February and is on track to raise $60 million for the month.

A source who tracks Obama's public donation number like a hawk tells me that Obama had tallied about 256,000 donors for the year as of the end of January. Those donors produced $36 million in receipts, for an average contribution of $140.

Obama's public donor count stands at 583,525, meaning about 327,000 people donated in February. With the same average, that would give Obama just over $46 million in 21 days.

This is in line with the expectations game they are playing. The campaign says they will raise at least $36 million in February. You can bet that they wouldn't say that if they hadn't already passed the mark, plus a decent sized buffer. Their lowered expectations call for them to beat January's total, when they will in fact blow them out.

He goes on to say that he believes Obama's campaign will quite possibly hit $70M.

What this reflects is not simply Obama-mania but a highly mobilized Democratic base rallying around the perceived leader.

Growing up in the NJ suburbs during the 90's, I'd seen as many ridiculous Rudy moves as it is possible to witness. As such, I was not surprised by his irrational reliance on the Florida primary to save a campaign that never got off the ground. The logic of the move escaped me then, and does now. Whatever advantage Rudy's campaign envisioned in the Sunshine State was allowed to evaporate as his opponents racked up wins, delegates, momentum, and cash in the preceding states. When the predicted day of Rudy's Shock and Awe victory arrived, the consequences of these bonehead moves became apparent.
Knowing his history, I thought this was just another example Giuliani stupidity. However, I'm beginning to think its a New York thing, as Sen. Clinton is now employing the same strategy