Earlier, while doing the scant two minutes of research required to slice into ribbons a particularly insipid anti-Obama diary, I came across a fascinating piece of information.
Take a look at this map.
See that? That's Obama Country, people: America, from sea to shining sea. By one absolutely crucial metric, Obama is carrying the entire country with him.
More >>>
The map itself is from Opensecrets.org, a fascinating resource on money in politics. The map key is simple: those states in the union where Obama raised the most money of all the candidates - of either party - are colored purple.
That's right, Obama raised more money in Wyoming than any republican. He raised more money in New York than Hillary Clinton. John McCain has the money lead in exactly three states as of March 20th, when the data for this project was pulled from the FEC web site. Mitt Romney - God, I miss Mitt Romney, especially his attack ads - led in two states.
As to Hillary Clinton, she leads the 2008 money race in five states, four of which are in the old Confederacy. She got beaten in her own (adopted) home turf, the State of New York.
The rest of this great nation is Obama country. Montana. Pennsylvania. South Dakota. North Carolina. Indiana. Oregon. West Virginia. Kentucky. All of them are Obama states, fueled by a spectacular, unforeseen explosion of grassroots small donors who are glad to finally feel good about themselves, their country, their politics, their party, and the man who will be their President.
Polls tell us that Barack Obama leads in the public mind on the question of who can unify the nation. In some ways, he already has.
(And, yeah, crossposted at MyDD, too)