From the Obama camp:

PROVIDENCE, RI – The Obama campaign announced today that hundreds of Obama supporters will participate in a statewide canvasses this weekend, going door-to-door in Rhode Island to share Senator Obama’s vision to unite our country and bring about real, meaningful change. 

 

On Saturday morning, participants will gather at Obama’s Rhode Island headquarters for a “Canvass Kickoff,” which will fire up volunteers and supporters before the weekend’s canvasses begin.

 

A list of the planned canvasses for Saturday and Sunday is below. Supporters can sign up for the canvasses at the events page on RI.BarackOBama.com, email RI@barackobama.com, or call Obama’s Rhode Island headquarters at 277-2008.

 

SATURDAY

 

...

 

CANVASS KICKOFF & LOCAL CANVASS

Obama Rhode Island Headquarters

235 Westminster

Providence, Rhode Island

Kickoff begins: 10:00 AM

Canvass begins: 10:30 AM

Speaking from his post at Brown University, Chafee said he will vote for Obama in Rhode Island's March 4 presidential primary. "I urge other Rhode Islanders to do likewise," he said.

Chafee described serving with Obama on the Senate Environment and Public Works and Senate Foreign Relations committees, and called him "very smart, very eloquent, and [possessed of] excellent judgment." He called Obama "the best candidate to restore American credibility," and "to bring people together."

WPRO's Robert Kennedy noted how McCain had campaigned on Chafee's behalf during the then-Republican's 2006 campaign against Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. In response, Chafee himself cited how Obama came to Rhode Island twice to campaign for Whitehouse, who won the Senate seat formerly held by Chafee and his late father, John Chafee. "That's just the way the system works," Chafee said.

Asked by Politico's Ben Smith to comment on the dynamic of how Whitehouse backs Hillary Clinton, Chafee responded by talking up Obama's chances in Rhode Island.

Jill Lawrence from USA Today asked about how the Ted Kennedy endorsement didn't seem to help Obama much in Massachusetts. Chafee says he thinks Rhode Island is different, since independents can vote in the Democratic primary here.

WJAR's Bill Rappleye asked about Obama's committee work. Chafee said he was impressed by Obama's reaction to John Bolton's UN nomination. "I saw him being thoughtful and outspoken on that issue, a complex issue," Chafee said.

Michelle Smith from the Providence office of the Associated Press, asked whether Chafee had spoken with Obama about his endorsement and what they discussed. Chafee said he shared his intentions earlier this week, during the three-state primary, and kept the conversation short because he knows Obama is busy. Chafee said he told the Democrat, "Anything he wanted, I would do for him."

I'm on standby for the conference call, but Halperin is reporting that Linc Chafee is endorsing Obama.

From the Obama campaign:

The Obama campaign announced that Attorney General Patrick Lynch and former Lieutenant Governor Charlie Fogarty will join Obama supporters at the campaign’s Rhode Island office opening TONIGHT, Wednesday February 13th.

 

The office, located at 235 Westminster Street in Providence, will provide additional support to the strong grassroots movement for change rallying behind Senator Obama’s candidacy here in Rhode Island.

With Hillary and McCain stepping up their attacks on Obama, here are more highlights from this morning's conference call with US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy and Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, Obama's two highest-profile supporters in Rhode Island.

-- Jim Baron from the Times of Pawtucket asked about Obama's tangible accomplishments. Kennedy responded by crediting the Illinois senator with creating "the most exciting modern election in the last 45 years."

-- Kennedy also pushed the electability point, noting that Obama fared well yesterday with different groups -- Catholics, seniors, and voters of different economic strata -- "including among groups that have been among Hillary's strongest base." The congressman added, "Barack's vote is a passionate vote."

-- Lynch, besides rapping the Bush administration, talked up Obama as the one candidate who will be able to unify America. Similar talk about "the need for a new direction," etc. 

-- Kennedy noted the opening at 6 this evening of Obama's Providence office (235 Westminster St.) and proclaimed, "Rhode Island is going to be part of a national effort to land the nomination, and we intend to play our part in history-making. It is going to be important in spite of the size of the state that we make our voice heard."

Following Obama's three-contest sweep yesterday, US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy and Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch took part in a conference call this morning with reporters.

I'll post more about this conversation after I'm off-deadline with this week's Phoenix, but one of the most interesting things was an observation from Kennedy.

Generally, in terms of policy, the congressman says, "Barack and Hillary are totally the same."

"The difference is who's going to mobilize the public to actually move on this stuff," and who will be able to motivate a Democrat-controlled Congress. "[Obama's] inspirational power" is the force, Kennedy says, that will move the country forward.

Obama's campaign, in advance of RI's March 4 presidential primary, is set to open a local headquarters tomorrow in the former Craftland space in downtown Providence, at the intersection of Westminster and Union streets.

Matt reported on this, as well as the familiar presence of Mike Dorsey and Chris Torres, yesterday:

The Obama headquarters is preparing for a huge volunteer meeting this Wednesday night at 600pm. Anyone who wants to get involved in the Rhode Island campaign is urged to show up. Click here to RSVP.

UPDATE: Obama rolling.

Obama looks like he's headed to a solid win in Maine, which the Washington Post had tabbed as a Hillary stronghold.

Also, Clinton has axed her campaign manager.

---

Speaking of Maine, Steve Peoples reports that AG Patrick Lynch was expected today to campaign there for Obama, in a state where he is seen as facing a tough fight with Hillary Clinton.

Peoples also reports on a phone call from Obama to Lynch, offering an echo of Tip O'Neill's hard-earned lesson about how people like to be asked for their support. Yet since it was reported here, before the Friday night call, that Lynch would be backing Obama, the conversation -- recorded for postery by the AG -- seems mostly to have been a formality.

Yesterday’s announcement followed a brief conversation with Obama Friday night.

The attorney general had been told to expect a phone call at 6:50 p.m. He gathered in his South Main Street office with his son and daughter, his brother John and a handful of his staff members. William Lynch was not there.

Patrick Lynch recorded the speaker-phone conversation to share it with his mother later.

The phone rang at exactly 6:50 p.m. Lynch playfully addressed Obama as “president” instead of “senator,” but the conversation quickly turned serious, according to Lynch.

Obama formally asked for the endorsement. “I said I’m making this decision because I believe in you. That’s what I said to him. And I do,” Lynch said.

In related news, Tad Devine, a Democratic bigfoot with Rhode Island roots, has an op-ed in today's Times, urging superdelegates to hold off on making their decisions.

If the superdelegates determine the party’s nominee before primary and caucus voters have rendered a clear verdict, Democrats risk losing the trust that we are building with voters today. The perception that the votes of ordinary people don’t count as much as those of the political insiders, who get to pick the nominee in some mythical back room, could hurt our party for decades to come.

The damage would be amplified if African-Americans or women, two of the party’s key constituencies, feel that a candidate who represents their most fervent hopes and aspirations is deprived of a nomination rightfully earned by majority support from voters.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, and their campaigns, are pressuring superdelegates to pledge support to them before Democratic voters in the remaining primaries and caucuses have made their decisions. But Democratic leaders need to let the voters sort out which one of these two remarkable people will lead our party and, we hope, the nation.

And Bill Reynolds takes a look at the life story of Brown U. basketball coach Craig Robinson, Obama's brother-in-law. 

UPDATE: Wash. Gov Chris Gregoire backs Obama on the eve of Washington caucuses.

---

Although the AG's office isn't commenting, it's my understanding that Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch will endorse Barack Obama. There could be an announcement as early as later today Monday. I reported on Lynch's neutrality here.

In related news, the ProJo, tucked away on page A7, reports today that Linc Chafee might vote for Obama.

Do you think some of Rhode Island Democrats who rushed onto the Hillary bandwagon are regretting that decision?

Do we have great timing or what? As the ProJo tells us today that the March 4 RI primary really matters, this week's Phoenix has a mini-profile of law student, blogger, and budding political activist Kim Ahern, the student coordinator for Obama's campaign in Rhode Island. Kim was happily dishing out the high-fives at Local 121 during the Super Tuesday watch.

Meanwhile, Matt reports that Obama's campaign is headed our way:

The Obama campaign is sending at least a half dozen campaign organizers to Rhode Island in the near future, including the mastermind Mike Dorsey, who was a key coordinator for the Sheldon Whitehouse Senate campaign in 2006.  Additionally, a campaign office in downtown Providence is opening soon at the corner of Westminster St. and Union St..

If you are interested in being part of a truly people-powered Obama campaign in RI, please email gobamari@gmail.com.

Plus, it's pretty entertaining when John DePetro, because of his intense dislike for Hillary, is encouraging his listeners (including Republicans, since McCain will be the nominee) to vote for Obama on March 4.

Reuters, via Drudge:

In California, which alone provides more than one-fifth of the Democratic delegates needed for the nomination, Obama led Clinton by 49 percent to 36 percent, the poll found. The margin of error was 3.3 percentage points.

Clinton pulled into a 5-point lead in New Jersey, 46 percent to 41 percent, after being tied on Monday. Obama held a 45 percent to 42 percent edge on Clinton in Missouri. Both polls had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

Obama had a 20-point edge in Georgia, aided by a more than 3-to-1 lead among black voters.

And Seth Gitell is there:

Obama, appearing in Boston right now alongside Deval Patrick, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, is giving his standard stump speech. But he is so confident and relaxed, he is absolutely at his best. The total package, stylistically, is far superior to Hillary Clinton’s appearance earlier today in Worcester.

“They did not want a politics based on p.r. and spin,” Obama said of voters. “They wanted straight talk.”"I am here to report to you my bet has paid off, because the American people are ready for change.”

The atmosphere — and the speech — are very similar to what I saw in the days immediately leading up to the New Hampshire primary. Then, as now, it’s difficult to translate energy and excitement into votes. In New Hampshire, like many members of the press, I was misled by what I saw in Lebanon and in Manchester.

I wonder how much a relatively stolid event, such as the one where Richard Neal, the congressman from Springfield, stressed the Clinton’s contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland, and Jim McGovern promoted Hillary Clinton’s health care plan, will help to get out traditional voters versus the tremendous energy of the hooting, hollering, chanting, clapping youthful crowd of tonight.

As voters go to the polls today in more than 20 states, The New York Times yesterday considered the question of whether Obama (or more specifically, his Web site) is the political equivalent of a Mac, with Hillary's resembling that of a PC.

That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.

“With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).

Meanwhile,

“Hillary’s is way more hectic, it’s got all these, what look like parody ads,” said Ms. Twemlow, who is not a citizen and cannot vote in the election.

Jason Santa Maria, creative director of Happy Cog Studios, which designs Web sites, detected a basic breach of netiquette. “Hillary’s text is all caps, like shouting,” he said. There are “many messages vying for attention,” he said, adding, “Candidates are building a brand and it should be consistent.”

But Emily Chang, the cofounder of Ideacodes, a Web designing and consulting firm, detected consistent messages, and summed them up: “His site is more youthful and hers more regal.”

So how does this translate into votes?

While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).

On the other hand:

On the big Internet issues like copyright, Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who is supporting Mr. Obama, said there was “not a big difference on paper” between the two Democrats. Both tend to favor the users of the Internet over those who “own the pipes.” He is impressed by Mr. Obama’s proposal to “make all public government data available to everybody to use as they wish.”

In the long run, however, Mr. Lessig believes that it is the ability to motivate the electorate that matters, not simple matters of style. And he’s a Mac user from way back.

You talkin' to me?

Poetic: the actor who played the role that perhaps best summed up the angst and coiled bitter emotion of Vietnam-era America supports the candidate who, as his supporters believe, offers the hope of bringing the country together.

With many observers calling the Democratic presidential race too close to call -- and holding out the possibility that this situation will persist after Super Tuesday -- we've heard a little talk of how superdelegates could play a decisive role.

Yesterday, though, in a piece that offers a strong historical perspective, Matt Bai questions this theory, and he posits the 2008 presidential election as part of a looming generational watershed.

All of American society, including our politics, has changed in the last 24 years, with the continued decline of centralized institutions. Blind loyalty to organizations has been replaced by a kind of skeptical free agency. If you needed an insurance policy in 1984, you probably called the agent who had been with your family for years; now, as with so much else, you go online and find the lowest price in the time it would take to file your nails. As Obama found out in Nevada, where he won the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union but lost a lot of its members’ votes, even union workers, once considered a monolithic bloc, no longer blindly follow their leaders’ dictates, preferring instead to choose for themselves.

In this new world, who is to say that the party’s superdelegates would still vote as the reliable instruments of the Democratic establishment? And even if they did, who is to say that other Democrats would tolerate a nomination brokered by a bunch of insiders? In the blog age, such events would likely turn the party upside down.

Or perhaps 2008 will mark the lasp gasp of the passing generation:

Obama’s emergence as a serious contender for the nomination has been framed, in historic terms, as a racial marker, but it also signals the beginning of the end of what history may record as a fruitless political era. We may have another boomer president in 2009, and maybe even another after that. (Four years after Hart first ran, after all, the country elected the last of the World War II veterans, George H. W. Bush.) But from here on out, as it did after Hart’s campaign, the balance will shift until ultimately the “Top Gun” generation has pushed aside the boomer establishment. Viewed through this prism, the talk about superdelegates has an almost poetic cadence to it. How fitting it would be if 24 years after Mondale called in his party chits to hold off the onslaught of younger Democrats, the Clintons were compelled to do the same.

Not a big surprise, but the hits keep coming. Will this be backed up by the voters on Tuesday?

With hundreds of thousands of ballots cast across the country, for the first time in MoveOn's history, we've voted together to endorse a presidential candidate in the primary. That candidate is Barack Obama.

 

Vote results 

Obama: 197,444  (70.4 percent)

Clinton: 83,084 (29.6 percent)

 

Something big is clearly happening. A few weeks ago, MoveOn members we surveyed were split. But with John Edwards bowing out, progressives are coming together. Obama won over 70% of the vote yesterday, and he's moving up in polls nationwide.

 

As comments poured in from MoveOn members across the country, the sense of hope was inspiring. Here's how Christine Y. in New Jersey put it: "I've never felt so strongly about any one candidate in my entire life. He's truly an inspiration to all of us—especially the younger generation. I will stand by him 100% for as long as he's willing to stand up and fight for this country!"

 

What does MoveOn's endorsement mean? People-power. Together, we are 3.2 million Americans who care about our country and want change. Half of us live in states with primaries or caucuses this coming "Super Tuesday."

 

We know how to roll up our sleeves and win elections, and if we all pitch in together between now and Tuesday, we can help Sen. Obama win the biggest primary day in American history. Think about it: volunteering during the next four days could mean four years of a progressive president.

From Matt:

Barack Obama needs to win Connecticut on Tuesday and you need to do your part.

Show up at Hope High School in Providence on Saturday at 800am and take a chartered bus to canvass in CT. 

Recent polls are showing a dead heat in CT., so hundreds of votes could swing this election.  Click here to check out the recent Obama mailer that went out to Connecticut voters educating them on Hillary Clinton's vote on the War.  Also, 2 Connecticut Congressmen - Chris Murphy and John Larson - endorsed Obama today.  

NOW is the time!

WASHINGTON (AP) — The woman who famously labeled Bill Clinton as the "first black president" is backing Barack Obama to be the second.

Author Toni Morrison said her endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate has little to do with Obama's race — he is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas — but rather his personal gifts.

Writing with the touch of a poet in a letter to the Illinois senator, Morrison explained why she chose Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for her first public presidential endorsement.

Morrison, whose acclaimed novels usually concentrate of the lives of black women, said she has admired Clinton for years because of her knowledge and mastery of politics, but then dismissed that experience in favor of Obama's vision.

"In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates," Morrison wrote. "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

"Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace — that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom," Morrison wrote.

Following the widespread view that Bill Clinton's anti-Obama efforts backfired in South Carolina, the New York Times reports, in a story tucked on A19 today, that the former president will play a "gentler role" going forward.

Obama, meanwhile, has scored the Kennedy hat-trick with the addition of RI's own US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team, seeking to readjust after her lopsided defeat in South Carolina and amid a sense among many Democrats that Mr. Clinton had injected himself clumsily into the race, will try to shift the former president back into the sunnier, supportive-spouse role that he played before Mrs. Clinton’s loss in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton advisers said.

But Democrats said it was not clear whether the effects of Mr. Clinton’s high profile could be brushed away by having him modulate his campaign style. They said Mr. Clinton had upset some of the central themes of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, including her appeal to women and her assertions that her time in the White House during the 1990s amounted to vital experience rather than a link to a presidency defined as much by scandal and partisan divisions as by its successes on fronts like the economy.

Despite Mrs. Clinton’s months-long efforts to build a base of support among women, Clinton advisers said they were concerned that her husband’s recent prominence may have dampened her appeal as a strong female leader. Some advisers said they feared as much after Mr. Obama won 54 percent of the vote from women in South Carolina, including 22 percent of white women and 78 percent of black women, according to polls.

Echoing private remarks by some Clinton advisers, Linda L. Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, said in an interview that she believed Mr. Clinton’s attacks on Mr. Obama had hurt Mrs. Clinton.

(AP photo)

Via Politico:

Rejecting a personal entreaty from President Bill Clinton, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president in a joint appearance on Monday, Democratic sources said.

The embrace provides a dramatic rocket for Obama to ride into the frantic, nationwide campaigning ahead of the spate of Super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5, the biggest day for nominating contests in U.S. history. Caroline Kennedy, the senator's niece and the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, will also appear at the rally, the sources said.

Democrats said the endorsement will help Obama with traditional Democratic groups where Clinton has been strong — union households, Hispanics and downscale workers.

Also, the nod by the most experienced member of the Senate adds significant standing to Obama, who is working to prove he has the experience necessary to be president.

The announcement stunned Senate colleagues, who had expected Kennedy to remain neutral until the increasingly vitriolic nominating contest with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) settled out.

“This is the biggest Democratic endorsement Obama could possibly get short of Bill Clinton,” said a high-level Democrat.

The Clinton campaign launched a last-ditch effort over the last few days to stop Kennedy's move, orchestrating a flood of phone calls to Kennedy from sources ranging from union chiefs to his Massachusetts constituents.

From the Time scribe:

While endorsements don’t usually matter much, Edward Kennedy’s does because:

1. He has a huge following with Hispanics, a big deal in California and other Super Tuesday states, and one of Obama’s weaknesses.

2. The symbolic Kennedy family thing — the ultimate message of change, viability, Democratic legitimacy, and youthful excitement.

3. The national press will be obsessed with the story for days and days to come, with no downside for Obama; the local press coverage when Kennedy travels for Obama will be ginormous.

4. It sends a message to other senators and superdelegates that it is OK to be for Obama — they don’t have to be afraid of the Clintons.

5. He has a huge following among working-class, traditional Democrats, one of Obama’s weaknesses.

6. He has a huge following among union households, another of Obama’s weaknesses.

Our neighbor to the north could be a surprisingly important battleground on Super Duper Tuesday, as David S. Bernstein writes in the Boston Phoenix:

Thanks to its heavy Democratic leanings, Massachusetts is the fifth-richest delegate prize on Super Tuesday for that party’s candidates, with a total of 121 — 93 of whom will be chosen by the voters that day. (The others are un-pledged “superdelegates.”)

And given Clinton’s home-field advantage in New York and New Jersey, and Obama’s in Illinois, Massachusetts can be viewed as second only to California among February 5 battleground states for the Democratic contenders.

That’s why, even though things have been quiet here so far, both camps tell the Phoenix that Massachusetts is a “tier one” Super Tuesday state, meaning it will get a full complement of staff and resources. Neither side will tip their hand about advertising, personal visits from the candidates, or other specific strategies yet, but you can certainly expect to start seeing yard signs, receiving mailers, and getting phone calls as the primary approaches.

But there is something strangely familiar about the situation. Almost the entire state’s Democratic establishment is on one side. Polls have long shown Clinton well ahead of her competition, including a recent State House News poll showing Clinton leading Obama 37 percent to 25 percent, and a WBZ/SurveyUSA poll showing an even wider margin, with Clinton ahead 56 to 23.

Running against this establishment candidate is a relative unknown, a black man touting a message of hope and change, calling on young idealists to rise up in a grassroots effort.

Nobody around here forgets that Deval Patrick swiped the gubernatorial nomination from the establishment-backed Tom Reilly. And given the stakes, Obama can hardly afford to lose the Bay State. As a result, few are discounting the possibility of Obama snatching Massachusetts from the Clinton machine.

Lots of Barack action over at Rhode Island's Future:

-- Kim has the details on the signing locations tomorrow for Obama's local delegates.

-- Matt has the back and forth over Clinton and allegations of sexism.

-- Pat writes about the slimy anti-Obama e-mail, full of falsehoods, that is making the rounds.

And elsewhere:

-- Hillary Clinton is running (h/t Halperin) down Obama's Senate experience.

-- Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a former Clinton appointee, is endorsing Obama.

From Halperin:

 

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

2004 Democratic nominee makes his choice.

Duo to appear at Thursday morning Charleston, SC rally.

Brings symbolic boost, superdelegate vote, fundraising email list.

The important role that independents will play in NH tomorrow has already gotten a lot of ink. Seth Gitell, formerly a political reporter for the Boston Phoenix, was in the Granite State this weekend and he has two interesting posts:

New voters could boost Obama:

I started covering the New Hampshire Primary in 2000. Since that time, the Granite State has gained 207,000 new voters. A new UNH study contends that 23.5% of the primary electorate will be new. In speaking with political experts and demographers, I’ve come to the conclusion that many of these new voters will cast ballots for Obama. Read more here.

Obama has the media abuzz:

One way to gauge a candidate’s momentum is the size and composition of the accompanying press corps. At today’s Barack Obama rally in Manchester, the big foots were out in force. There were so many reporters, in fact, that Obama’s campaign ran out of lanyards for press credentials. (Unlike Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Obama has never offered reporters string or fasteners for the journalists to wear around their necks.)  

I grabbed a seat directly behind Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill of The News Hour on PBS. Woodruff’s husband Al Hunt of Bloomberg was nearby. From that vantage point, I could see Chris Matthews of MSNBC to my far left and his colleague at NBC, Tim Russert, to my right. Russert stood with Walter Isaacson, who formerly served as the editor of Time Magazine. I happened to check the clock on my cell phone and noticed it was 10:35 a.m. and became agitated. How could Russert, whose “Meet the Press” appears on my television in Boston at 10:30 a.m., be simultaneously standing a few feet from me at that hour. As I rushed out of the hall, he assured me the show was “pre-taped.” Phew. All is well with the space-time continuum. ....

My sense from observing the various crews is that the crew covering Obama is more excited about it, particularly the uber-boomers like Russert and, especially, Matthews.

My friend Matt Jerzyk, an occasional Phoenix contributor, has weighed in with his endorsement of Obama:

Judgment matters.America has woken up to this sober reality after being led down a path of international and domestic turmoil by some of the most "experienced" politicians in Washington  DC. 

The Iraq War has bankrupted our treasury and stretched our armed forces.  China is in the strategic position of holding a mortgage on the American house.  American political and moral authority around the globe has waned.  And more and more Americans have less and less income: losing health care, losing their home, losing hope.

These are perilous times, indeed. 

After 18 months of researching, listening, thinking, debating, I have reached a conclusion: Barack Obama should be the next President of the United  States.    

His judgment in opposing the Iraq War from the beginning is impressive.  Remember back in 2002 when most Democrats were caving in to George Bush?  Not Obama.

Here is what Obama said in October, 2002:

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.  What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. 

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

I trust Obama's instincts on the issues that matter.  And judgement matters.   

Something else that matters is leadership. Americans under 35 years of age have longed for a Martin Luther King, for a Bobby Kennedy, for any leader to believe in.  Connected by cell phones, text messaging, email and Facebook, we have become disconnected from the political process.  We don't believe that politics - or any institution for that matter - can make our lives better.  

Barack Obama has changed that.  He has built a campaign that has inspired a movement.  Tens of thousands of people turn out to rally with Obama everywhere he goes.  The same number are volunteering to doorknock or make phone calls to voters in early states.

Obama has raised over $80 million in small donations from all over America.  No one thought he could compete with the Clinton fundraising machine - especially when he announced that he would reject PAC money and lobbyist dollars.  But, he has even surpassed the Clinton fundraising.

In the center of this movement, Barack Obama has been an inspiring leader.  And, yearning for a leader in these troubled times, America has turned to Barack Obama.  

Leadership matters. 

In reading parts of his two books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams of My Father, I was  filled-up once again with a belief in the power of change, the power of hope.  Similarly, when Obama speaks he weaves policy wonkishness, engaging anecdotes and political philosophy together in a way that draws everybody in.  He is the public intellectual that will guide our nation through some of its worst times ahead.  

I largely agree with the Boston Globe:

THE FIRST American president of the 21st century has not appreciated the intricate realities of our age. The next president must. The most sobering challenges that face this country - terrorism, climate change, disease pandemics - are global. America needs a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world, with all its perils and opportunities. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has this understanding at his core. 

On a personal level, I appreciate his choices to be a community organizer, to go to law school, to practice in the field of civil rights.  I have made similar choices.  Throughout his life, Obama has shown an understanding that change only happens when you fight for it - not in the ivory tower - but with the people.  He also has shown an uncanny ability to bring people together - one of the most important tools in fighting for social justice.      

Let me turn to some of the other candidates that I considered:  

I have come close to supporting John Edwards on several occasions.  His turn in the last few years to economic populism and his support of the labor movement is attractive.  His rejection of the Iraq War at Riverside  Church was powerful.  I admired his campaign kick-off in New  Orleans.  Indeed, if I was supporting a president solely on their policies, I would probably be supporting Edwards.  However, I question his vote on the Iraq War when millions of Americans were urging the Senate to reject the Bush Administration’s rush to War.   I also question Edwards' decision to take public financing that would put his presidential campaign in a dangerous position before the Democratic convention. 

Hillary Clinton certainly knows how to get things done in Washington.  After twelve years in the Arkansas Governor’s mansion, Clinton spent eight years in the White House and seven years in the United States Senate.  Her rolodex is undoubtedly immense.  But experience in Washington has a way of suffocating political imagination.  Having been a lobbyist, I have seen how troubling the machinations of back room deals are.  Another one of the benefits of her campaign is the nostalgia for the Clinton years.  Yet, as someone who protested President Clinton in Seattle in 1999, I am not eager to return to the years when the Democratic Party stabbed labor and environmental groups in the back with NAFTA and the WTO.  It was Bill Clinton, after all, who introduced Wall St. to the Democratic Party and shifted the priorities of the Party from the working class to the upper class.    

Click here to read the entire endorsement.

Obama and his supporters are way ahead in the signature-gathering lead in Rhode Island, according to the info on the Web site of Secretary of State Ralph Mollis.

Not that this offers more than a snapshot, but Obama has 1699 sigs (946 qualified), compared with 96 signatures (0 qualified) for Rudy Giuliani, the second-highest total of the moment. Hillary has 55 sigs (0 qualified). A candidate needs 1000 qualified signatures to get on the RI ballot.

With parties as disparate as Brown students and conservative Andrew Sullivan rallying behind Barack Obama, supporters of the Democratic candidate will be out gathering signatures Saturday morning to get him on the Rhode Island ballot:

A grassroots, all-volunteer effort kicks off this weekend to ensure that Barack Obama qualifies for the March 4 th Rhode Island Presidential Primary. Rhode Island law requires that 1,000 notarized signatures of registered voters in the state be obtained by December 26th.

 

The Obama signature drive will begin on Saturday, December 8th. Petitions will be available for signing at or near the following locations: 

 

• Providence Downtown - Kennedy Plaza Skating Rink, Butterfield (232 Westminster St.)

• Providence East Side – Blue State Coffee (300 Thayer St.)

• Providence West Side – Atwells Ave./Dean St. , Nick's on Broadway (259 Broadway)

• Pawtucket – Pawtucket Public Library (13 Summer St.)

• Cumberland – Dave's Marketplace ( 2077 Diamond Hill Rd.)

• Warwick – Community College of Rhode Island

• Cranston – Whole Foods Market (151 Sockanosset Cross Road )

• Barrington – Shaw's Supermarket (186 County Rd. )

• East Greenwich – Starbucks (555 Main St .)

• Newport – Newport Public Library (300 Spring St.)

 

Supporters of Barack Obama who wish to get involved in the Rhode Island Primary campaign may email gobamari@gmail.com or call 401-884-4294.

The conventional wisdom is taking hold that Obama and Huckabee are likely to win the Iowa caucus on January 3.

While Hillary could bounce back with a win in New Hampshire, a couple of observers think that Obama would be a tougher challenge for the Republicans. Conservative Andrew Sullivan recently made the case in the Atlantic that Obama is the candidate best poised to move the US beyond the hyper-partisanship that has grown through the Clinton-Bush years:

The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama is not, in the end, about Barack Obama. It has little to do with his policy proposals, which are very close to his Democratic rivals’ and which, with a few exceptions, exist firmly within the conventions of our politics. It has little to do with Obama’s considerable skills as a conciliator, legislator, or even thinker. It has even less to do with his ideological pedigree or legal background or rhetorical skills. Yes, as the many profiles prove, he has considerable intelligence and not a little guile. But so do others, not least his formidably polished and practiced opponent Senator Hillary Clinton. . . . .

In politics, timing matters. And the most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.

Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you.

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a mo­mentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

Yesterday, Frank Rich took up the case that Obama is the man:

But much like the Clinton campaign itself, the Republicans have fallen into a trap by continuing to cling to the Hillary-is-inevitable trope. They have not allowed themselves to think the unthinkable — that they might need a Plan B to go up against a candidate who is not she. It’s far from clear that they would remotely know how to construct a Plan B to counter Mr. Obama. The repeated attempts to fan “rumors” that he is a madrassa-indoctrinated Muslim — whether on Fox News or in The Washington Post, where they resurfaced scurrilously on the front page on Thursday — are too demonstrably false to survive endless reruns even in the Swift-boating era.

Part of the Republicans’ difficulty in countering Mr. Obama, should they have to, is their own cynical racial politics. For the most part, race has been the dog that hasn’t barked in this campaign despite the (largely) white press’s endless fretting about whether the Illinois senator is too white for black voters and too black for white voters. Most Americans aren’t racist, most Republicans included. (Those who are won’t vote for the Democratic presidential candidate even if it’s not Mr. Obama.) But the G.O.P., by its own doing, is nonetheless saddled with a history that most recently includes “macaca” and Katrina, Mr. Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones University in 2000 and the nonexistent black population of its Congressional delegation.

As the Republican leadership knows, this record is an albatross, driving away not just black voters but crucial white swing voters, too. Ken Mehlman, the former G.O.P. chairman, and Mr. Rove, as recently as in that Newsweek column, have implored their party to reach out to minorities. So have Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp. But not even conservative leaders of this stature could persuade their party’s top 2008 presidential contenders to show up for a September debate moderated by Tavis Smiley for PBS at the historically black Morgan State University.

It’s not because those no-shows are racists; it’s because they are defensive and out of touch. With the notable exception of Mike Huckabee, most of the party’s candidates have barricaded themselves from African-Americans for so long that they don’t know how to speak to or about them. As sure-footed as these Republicans are in attacking the Clintons and Streisand — or in exchanging fire with Al Sharpton and hip-hop moguls — they are strangers to the mainstream multiracial and multicultural America exemplified by an Obama or an Oprah.

An Obama candidacy would force them to engage. Or try to. A matchup between Mr. Obama and Mr. Giuliani, who was forged in the racial crucible of New York’s police brutality nightmares of the 1990s, or between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney, who was shaped by a religion that didn’t give blacks equal membership until 1978, would be less a clash of races than of centuries.

But there’s another, even more fascinating hidden story line in the 2008 campaign that speaks to the potential prowess of an Obama candidacy. Despite the thuggish name-calling of a few right-wing die-hards (e.g., Rush Limbaugh mocking “Barack Hussein Odumbo”), the dirty secret of a number of conservatives is that they are disarmed by Mr. Obama even though they know his record is more liberal than Mrs. Clinton’s.

The drumbeat of approval has been remarkably steady. Last year Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to both the 2000 and 2004 Bush campaigns, admiringly called Mr. Obama “a walking, talking hope machine” who “may reshape American politics.” Andrew Ferguson devoted pages in The Weekly Standard to raving about “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama’s memoir, before dismissing its political sequel, “The Audacity of Hope.” Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, keeps trying to write anti-Obama articles but they’re so mild that they never really contradict his judgment of a year ago that the senator from Illinois “is the only presidential candidate from either party about whom there is a palpable excitement.” Even Tom Tancredo, the most virulent immigration demagogue of the G.O.P. presidential field, has spoken warmly of Mr. Obama.

Perhaps most striking is the case of Shelby Steele, the archconservative scholar who shares Mr. Obama’s mixed-race heritage. Though he has just written an entire book, “A Bound Man,” to argue (unpersuasively, in my view) that Mr. Obama “can’t win,” he can’t stop himself from admiring the guy throughout. Peggy Noonan wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek when she wondered in The Wall Street Journal last month whether Mr. Obama “understands the kind of quiet cheering he is beginning to garner from some Republicans.” In her view “they see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness.”

Or at least they do in the abstract. Should Mr. Obama upend the Beltway story line by taking Iowa, the Republicans will have every reason to be as fearful as the Clinton camp is now.

Barack Obama, who last week picked up an endorsement from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, will be the subject of a fundraiser tomorrow evening (5-7) at the Providence Black Repertory Company (suggested donation: $100; $23 for students). The featured guest is Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe.

Plouffe, a partner in