Shepherdstown, W. Va.

While Barack Obama is busy ordering champagne for his premature victory party on May 20th, Hillary Clinton is pounding the West Virginia trail to get-out-the-vote in Tuesday's primary.

By all accounts Clinton will enjoy a double-digit win in West Virginia, followed by another in Kentucky one week later. And even though Obama, his surrogates, and pundit parrots are furiously pre-spinning his losses in these two states by suggesting that they don't really matter -- West Virginia and Kentucky could end up being game-changers for Clinton. Here's why:

Rural America can determine who becomes the next President. And West Virginia and Kentucky show off Clinton's commanding rural advantage.

But they aren't the only ones. Check out the county-by-county results from four very close contests (Clinton is red; Obama, green):

Missouri (Obama won by 1.3%):

New Mexico (Clinton won by 1%):

Texas (Clinton won by 3.5%):

Indiana (Clinton won by 2%)

As you can see, Clinton's base covers a broader geographic region, nearly a sweep of counties.  Although population counts may be relatively equal between the red and green areas -- these maps illustrate how well she consistently performs in rural America.

Hillary has hit her stride in small towns and rural communities across the country, connecting with working class voters with a populist appeal reminiscent of Bobby Kennedy. For those who have followed Hillary Clinton's life and career, we know it's genuine. You can see the joy on her face when she's working the rope line in town squares, even at the end of a 16-hour day. Of course Obama's "bitter" moment aided her, but cinching this demographic segment is a crucial achievement that Clinton has earned for the Democrats. And, you might say...one benefit of this extended primary season that some party members are anxious to end.

A Democratic pollster for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News said it well:

Rural and small-town voters are the best indicators of whether a candidate is connecting with the values of Middle America. "They are America.  Too often Democrats end up with candidates who can speak only to metro America. If you can speak to [rural and small-town America], then you relate to the rest of America."

Pay attention, folks. These are General Election swing voters needed to reach 270 electoral votes.

Swing voters.

And no one understands that better than the superdelegates, many of whom rely on these same voters for their own re-elections.

So Barack Obama might think twice about dismissing West Virginia and Kentucky, even if he calculates that their votes and delegates are inconsequential to the nomination. The hard-working people of Appalachia and bluegrass country represent a nationwide constituency capable of delivering the White House in November. And for Clinton, they will put her within striking distance of a popular vote lead.

Note: Maps and election results from uselectionatlas


Cross posted at texasdarlin.

TexasDarlin, all rights reserved.
Not affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign

There's a profoundly disturbing diary on the recent diaries list that requires some further comment. The subject of the diary is a wingnut video, plucked at random from YouTube, juxtaposing Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and images of the burning World Trade Center. Here's what's coming for you, Democrats, the diarist warns, if you nominate Obama. Just thought I'd show you.

The idea, ostensibly, is to frighten Democrats into dropping their support for Barack Obama - support which is majoritarian and hardening across all polls - in favor of his primary competitor, Senator Hillary Clinton. I would hazard a guess that this video would be deleted if posted on RedState. Even they have standards.

I haven't, nor have many others, given years of my life to the Progressive Movement to be associated with this kind of filth. We New Yorkers tend to react viscerally when anyone uses 9/11 imagery in pursuit of some base political goal; that this is a wide-spread view held far beyond the five boroughs is attested by Rudy Giuliani's implosion. There is something deeply obscene about campaigning on the graves of our dead. It is doubly obscene to see it happening in a Democratic primary. Those 3,000 people didn't die to give Hillary a momentary tactical advantage.

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There has been so much generalized chatter regarding the Democratic candidates effect on down ticket candidates running for Congressional office in 2008 , that I decided to explore some of the top contenders and the effect their candidacy for President may have on a specific down ticket candidate. The Democratic candidates I will be taking a look at are Barack Obama , my candidate , John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Congressional candidate I will be looking at is none other than my own , House Representative and DOCTOR Steve Kagen (D-WI) who represents the 8th District of the state of Wisconsin.

Dr. Kagen was elected to a seat that was once held by a very strong Republican in a very tight race and the Republicans want their seat back. He was elected in 2006 after running on a platform of HEALTH CARE ! I encourage others who have members of Congress up for re-election to also think about the effect our Presidential Nominee will have on their down ticket candidate. Dr. Kagen was heavily attacked by the Republican opposition last time and is currently on the RNC's Target List for defeat this time as he is up for Re-Election.

To those of you who have already chosen a candidate other than Illinois Senator Barack Obama and are criticizing his recent decision to limit future debates, I have a simple question for you. I am reading quite a few complaints about Barack Obamas decision to limit the future debates to the ones sanctioned by the DNC as well as a few others he has already committed to, in a effort to reach voters who are unable to view or attend these debates. Barack Obama has not "dropped out" of televised debates as some are spinning or misstating , but rather , he is limiting them. I have no reason to believe that he is doing this for none other than what was stated by the campaign.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community group/ObamaHQ

However, I am perplexed by the accusations and animosity coming from die hard supporters of other candidates regarding Barack Obamas decision. These claims and suggestions being made by others would have one believe that Barack Obama has somehow , turned his back on the democratic process of running a campaign when in all truth, he is doing the exact opposite. He's making his Campaign more inclusive and he is not going to be able to effectively meet with voters in key Primary states if he is bogged down attending a debate and answering Press questions from the Media as opposed to the real voters , under the false setting of a Forum or debate setting. But my question to those of you who have chosen another candidate to support and are not supporting Barack Obama, but have taken so much time and energy to attack him on this decision, is this.

Why does it matter to you so much?

Here is the entire ( un-cherry picked ) statement from the Obama Campaign.

Debates and forums going forward

By David Plouffe - Aug 18th, 2007 at 11:06 am EDT  

As we head into the fall, the campaign is entering a new more engaged phase that will give voters an even greater sense of Barack's message of change and require the campaign to make decisions that balance the important role of debates and maximize time to run the kind of campaign we need to.

We have just been thru a period of three debates/forums in six days and the outlook for the future holds more of the same. And, because of likely calendar movement, once we get past Labor Day the Iowa caucuses are less than 120 days away.

So far, Barack has attended seven Democratic debates and nineteen candidate forums. There are five remaining sanctioned DNC debates, which we are committed to attend and two Iowa debates normally held in January, which are being held in December, which we are also committed to attend. We will also be attending the Univision debate in Florida on September 9. This means that by the end of this year, Obama will have participated in a total of 15 Democratic debates.

The debates have been important moments for our campaign, demonstrating clearly that Barack Obama is the candidate who will bring about the greatest change to our broken politics. Looking at the first sanctioned DNC debate in South Carolina, Obama was scored the clear winner by undecided voters in South Carolina and New Hampshire.

Unfortunately, we simply cannot run the kind of campaign we want and need to, engaging with voters in the early states and February 5 states, if our schedule is dictated by dozens of forums and debates. Ultimately, the one group left out of the current schedule is the voters and they are the ones who ask the toughest questions and most deserve to have those questions answered face to face.

Therefore, after this week, we will only be attending the five DNC debates through the sanctioning period of December 10, Univision, and the two Iowa debates previously mentioned. Candidate forums - where candidates appear sequentially will be considered, but we are unlikely to accept many of these. Instead, Barack will spend his time answering questions directly from voters in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and elsewhere. We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race.

After the sanctioning period, there will undoubtedly be a large number of debates scheduled in the early states and in February 5 states. We will make decisions on those as we get closer, but will clearly be doing a healthy number of debates after the sanctioning period.

Many friends and terrific organizations are sponsoring or planning to sponsor debates and forums. So this is not an easy decision for us to execute. But it simply won't work to navigate this one by one. We felt we needed to make our approach clear and consistent.

I think this approach will be better for the voters and the campaign.

David

It is WAAAAYYY TTOOOOO EARLY for a presidential campaign.

I did a bit of election-day GOTV canvassing for Craig Johnson's successful NY state senate campaign. While I have a strong aversion to being yelled at by strangers and long ago gave up on phone banking, I was asked to canvass targeted Democratic-registered voters a neighborhood and decided to give it a try. While the experience was not without interesting moments, it was, on the whole, extremely unpleasant. It also got me wondering whether the traditional, intrusive GOTV tactics of canvassing and phone banking in a media-saturated world may be ineffective at best and strategically detrimental at worst.

I'm curious whether anyone in the MyDD community has hard, empirical evidence about the effectiveness of canvassing and phone banking. While there are a wide variety of anecdotes of individuals who seem to have responded positively to calls or visits, I wonder whether there is any data that can isolate the contribution of canvassing/phone-banking to actual votes within the context of a larger campaign effort and larger social and political forces. It's something we just seem to accept as part of politics without ever asking whether it makes a positive contribution toward the larger goal.

Guest blogger: Paull Young.

Paull is known for creating Australia's first student PR blog, Young PR, and has been heavily involved at Forward -- an online springboard for new and upcoming PR professionals. Paull started the Anti Astroturfing Campaign together with Trevor Cook of Corporate Engagement in July this year.

...to view the articele with links go to Blog Campaigning

What is Astroturfing?

Astroturfing is the practice of creating fake entities that appear to be real grassroots organizations, when in fact they are the work of people or groups with hidden motives and identities.

Astroturfing is a deceptive and deceitful practice - and while it is often blamed on public relations, it is really only carried out by unethical individuals who lack the savvy and intelligence to persuade people with an honest argument.

Leading Australian PR blogger Trevor Cook and I started the anti-astroturfing campaign to tackle the issue. We aimed to lead a debate on the issue amongst PR bloggers and encourage PR practitioners, professional associations and big PR agencies to confront and oppose the practice. If you're new to the topic - visit the anti-astroturfing campaign to view a huge collection of resources focusing on the topic.

How is astroturfing used in politics?

Astroturfing is used for political purposes more than any other. This is because a real grassroots organization is an extremely powerful political entity. If people care enough about an issue to organize around it, it will hold great political power.

It is incredibly difficult to create a real grassroots organization. A large number of people need to passionately care about an issue to organize around it, and even if there are large numbers of people who believe in a certain issue - this does not mean that they will necessarily organize around it.

As a result, unethical operators will (on occasion) try to create an illusion of real grassroots support in order to influence people through deception. It is much easier to create a fake organization and try to make it look real then to help nurture and give voice to real opinions from real people.

So while the building of grassroots support for an issue is a valuable communication tactic - helping give voice to real opinions held by real people. The creation of Astroturf groups - putting forward fake opinions or using fake people to promote a cause with hidden motives - is not.

Astroturfing and online communication

New online tools make astroturfing much easier to carry out, but they also make it much more difficult to get away with.

In an environment where anyone can create an authentic looking website, blog, podcast or vlog; it is extremely easy for astroturfing groups to create a seemingly authentic fake organization. It is easy to hide your identity or put forward your point of view with anonymity; and the ease of creating fake people or putting forward false viewpoints is attractive to unethical operators attempting to promote an unpopular cause.

However, the nature of the blogosphere means that astroturf operations are often gleefully uncovered - much to the chagrin of the scoundrels hiding behind them. Blogs are successful because of their authentic voice and passionate ideas held by real people. Anything that doesn't ring true or appear authentic will be investigated and uncovered. There is an army of bloggers out there who understand that astroturfing undermines everything they believe in - and they won't be backwards in attacking fakes in their neighbourhood.

An Example: The Infamous Al Gore YouTube video

My points above are demonstrated by the well known `March of the Penguin Army' episode.

A video was posted on YouTube (apparently made by a real, concerned individual acting on his own beliefs) that was highly critical of Al Gore's views on climate change. This eventually caught the attention of a Wall Street Journal reporter, who noticed that the video was advertised on Google. Why would a supposedly amateur video have advertisements?

The industrious Post reporter contacted the individual who posted the video. They claimed to be a college student and refused an interview. The reporter then dug a little deeper and found that the `college student's' email address stemmed from Washington PR firm DCI Group. And one of DCI Groups major clients? Exxon - who have a vested interest in opposing climate change.

This led to a blog storm and you can read all the coverage on this page at the anti-astroturfing campaign.

This example shows just how easy it is to kick off an astroturfing campaign online - but it also shows how easy it is to get caught, and the justifiable anger and disgust that results.

For more information on astroturfing, spend some time investigating the many resources available at the anti-astroturfing campaign page.