In another great strategic move from a campaign that has had many, the Obama campaign will spend its big night pivoting from the nominating contest to the general election with a prime-time speech on Tuesday night live from Iowa.

The state of Oregon will be holding its Presidential Primary next Tuesday May 20. A week after the Clinton blow-out in WV,  Oregon is the 16th "whitest" state in the Union but it's more educated and environmentally concerned populace has been becoming more progressive as the years go by.  They have voted Democrat in every Presidential Election since 1988. 52 delegates are at-stake in the MAIL only primary.

Just out this evening at 6:30 PM Eastern Time is a new ABC News/Washington Post Poll.  The numbers look good for Senator Obama both against Clinton and more importantly against McCain.  This is the first-post presumptive nominee poll.  Enjoy it!

The Politico has a great piece up about a 50-year old lawyer named Jeffrey Berman who is Senator Obama's Director of Delegate Selection.  Most of you already know the story--the Obama team has performed brilliantly during this campaign making the much vaunted Clinton campaign look like amateurs. But this is another confirmation in detail about the meticulous preparation that was made for this campaign.

Now that this whole 2008 Democratic Presidential Nominating contest winds down, lots of folks are dropping their guard, particularly in the media.  Those of us on DailyKos spend a lot of time on the net, plus on the cable networks getting our fix. We have seen and heard lots of opinions under the guise of reporting.

If there is one thing we can all agree on is that the 11 magical days last February (immediately after Super Tuesday) when Senator Obama proceeded to rout Hillary Clinton in 11 straight contests provided the crucial delegate gap between the two campaigns--a separation that was never challenged since.

Hillary Clinton's scorched-earth campaign against Barack Obama may not get her the Democratic Nomination but it is winning the hearts and minds of many right-wingers who only months ago were reveling in her downfall.  Why?

Tonight's Town Hall in Wilmington, NC with Senator Barack Obama features
one of the best unscripted moments in the entire campaign. A moment which
could help Obama put this thing away.

You know this campaign is too smart and too shrewd to NOT have something big
up its sleeve in the next week.  He wouldn't be sitting back and letting HRC
attack and attack if he knew something big was coming down the pike. But what is it?

In today's New York Times there's a wonderful article about how the French (both the right and left) are appalled at their new president whose  cultural affinities run decidedly low-brow.  How refreshing to have a country up in arms about the boob they elected to their presidency.  Meanwhile back in this lovely country,  politicians have to pretend to be as regular as joe six-pack.  What a fucked up country this is!

In a preview of tomorrow's new Quinnipiac University Poll in the Pennyslvania Democratic Primary it appears as if the effects of "bittergate" have not adversely affected Senator Obama.

The great essayist and writer Gary Wills has a brilliant piece in the May 1, 2008 issue of
The New York Review of Books that compares "Two Speeches on Race."

Tom Brokaw's stirring two-hour History channel tribute to Martin Luther King was one of the best docs
I have seen in a long time.  Great talking heads from the original sources--Andrew Young,  John Lewis.  The best part was so much 1960s video footage from television broadcasts.  

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, one of the Senate's leading liberals and a former presidential candidate himself is now sending strong signals that he will endorse Senator Obama and vote for him at the convention.

Perry Bacon's fine piece in today's Washington Post says basically everything we've all be saying about Howard Dean.  He is the most important Democratic Party figure to emerge in this decade.  

I was just watching David Gregory's "Race For The White House" on MSNBC and in  the segment where they play a voicemail question from a viewer there was a tough question from a Clinton supporter about Obama's fitness to tackle the troubled economy.

I found this little tidbit today about how Senator Obama's margin in Cook County (Chicago) pretty much accounts for most of Obama's popular vote margin over Clinton and that Obama's Cook County margin--429,000 is a bigger margin than anyone took from ANY state so far.

Throughout this campaign we have been deluged by surrogates from both sides--spouses, Kennedys, Rendell, Kerry, Tubbs-Jones, et al.  Perhaps the most effective surrogate for Senator Obama has been Senator Clare McCaskill from MO.