Hillary's incredible week just keeps getting better. First it was her resounding victory at last week's New Hampshire debate, where her response to Tim Russert's assertion that her position on interrogation techniques contradicted her husband's ("Well, he's not standing up here, is he?") became the defining moment of this primary season. Then, the post-debate polls all showed her to be the clear winner.
And then today, Hillary announced to supporters that she's raised a whopping $27 million for Q3, with $22 million in primary funds, and -- most impressive of all -- she got a huge boost from 100,000 new donors. She beat Obama, she beat Edwards, and she beat everyone in the Republican primary, too.
And now we also know that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has decided to endorse Hillary, after being courted heavily by both the Clinton and Obama campaigns:
Oakland Mayor Backs Clinton
By SCOTT LINDLAW – 18 hours ago
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the endorsement Monday of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, a widely admired black leader who had anguished over whether to back Sen. Barack Obama, her leading Democratic presidential rival.
The endorsement came as Clinton and Dellums toured a vocational classroom at Laney College in Oakland, where Clinton announced that Dellums will head her campaign's Urban Policy Committee.
The Clinton campaign spent months assiduously courting Dellums, a former U.S. Marine who served 27 years in Congress and once headed the powerful House Armed Services Committee. Dellums told associates he was excited by the energy of Obama's campaign, but he withheld his endorsement longer than many other black leaders.
But Clinton's willingness to embrace his recommendations on how to improve urban America, and her credentials on foreign and military affairs, won Dellums over.
"Oakland alone lacks the resources to enact this great vision of Oakland as a model city," Dellums told hundreds of students. "We needed strong leadership at the federal level, we needed partners at the federal level, we needed a federal urban agenda."
Clinton "has stepped forward to fashion a coherent, cogent, value-oriented, principled agenda for this country that she calls 'leave no city behind.' Isn't that incredible?" Dellums said.
Clinton promised: "Ron, I want you to know, that come January 2009, you will have a partner in the White House." She pledged as president to put more police officers on the streets, battle crime and enact sweeping health care reform.
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Dellums' progressive record is virtually unparalleled:
Ronald Vernie (Ron) Dellums (born November 24, 1935), U.S. Democratic Party politician, is the mayor of the City of Oakland, California. He was a U.S. Representative from California from 1971 until his resignation on February 6, 1998 and following that, a lobbyist until his election as Mayor of Oakland. He is the second African American mayor of Oakland.
Dellums was the first African American elected to Congress from Northern California and the first openly socialist American Congressman since World War II.
Dellums' voting records in Congress were "almost without exception straight As" from groups such as the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women and the AFL-CIO. He received 100% on consumer group Public Citizen's scorecard.
As an east bay resident and proud supporter of Ron Dellums and his successor in Congress, Barbara Lee, I'm thrilled to know that Hillary's campaign has added a powerful and persuasive progressive voice to its star-studded roster.
SOURCES:
http://ap.google.com/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...