Campaign Watch II – Red State Girls….and…um…Indonesia

CAMPAIGN NOTE 1:

Well, the first returns are in and Barack Obama is ahead among…..ex patriot Americans living in Indonesia. Yes, you read right. And weirdly enough this is actually a CNN news story. Out of 100 or so American ex pats casting votes Jakarta, 75 percent went for Barack, the rest for Hillary. (By the way, Americans living—and voting—abroad combine to count as a 22 delegate “state” in Tsunami Tuesday, so noting this first mini-win has some validity as a story I suppose, but still…..)

CAMPAIGN NOTE 2:
Yesterday, a very strongly-worded opinion piece by three red state women appeared in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. The authors were Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona, Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas, and Claire McCaskill , the U.S. senator from Missouri.

It begins:

“Once in a generation, an opportunity comes along — not just for the Democratic Party, but for the United States of America — to build a new majority for change. Barack Obama’s candidacy offers us that opportunity. As Democrats, and as Americans, we must seize it.

[SNIP]
As Democrats from so-called Red States, we know that the way to win elections is not just by blaming Mr. Bush, or building campaigns focused on beating the other side — it’s by bringing people together. Americans are fed up with a divisive brand of politics that is more about scoring points than solving problems. To win in November — and to govern this country — we should not choose to be a party that extends an era of bitter partisanship; we must be the party that ends it.

As Op Eds go, it’s a barn burner. I recommend reading the whole thing. (And just in case the WSJ shuts off access, here’s another link to the text.)

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CAMPAIGN NOTE 3:

Last night as I was making dinner, I finally watched a video of Sunday’s rally at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. I enjoyed the whole thing, but if you’re not in the mood to sit through fifteen minutes of Oprah who, for no apparent reason suddenly and eerily began talking in Barack’s vocal cadences, I recommend fast forwarding to about the 25-minute mark to watch Michelle Obama. Hers is quite an amazing speech. In fact, if it could be distilled down and then aerial sprayed over the populace, her huz would be elected president with no trouble at all.

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CAMPAIGN NOTE 4:

According to the Daily News, if California high school students could decided on the Dem candidate for president, it’d be Obama by a healthy margin. In terms of the grown-ups….well, today’s the day we find out.