As promised, here is my latest canvassing report. I drove up from DC this morning and arrived at the Obama headquarters in Wynnewood, PA, right outside Philadelphia, around 2 PM.

They sent me to Narberth, which is in Montgomery County, less than 10 minutes from Philly. As I said in my previous post, I went to high school right around there, so I know the area pretty well. Most of the people I talked to today were white, upper-middle class, ages 30-55.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, especially after getting not such great vibes at the ACME in Narberth 2 weeks ago when I was there doing voter registration. But I am pleased to report that of the people I talked to today, I identified 8 Obama supporters, 3 undecided, and only 1 Clinton supporter. Unlike 2 weeks ago, I didn’t meet anyone who said they were a lifelong Dem who would vote for McCain if Obama was the nominee (though I met one woman who said a few of her friends might, because they did not trust Obama on Israel).

A few of the people I met were already volunteering, mostly through the Center City office in Philadelphia. One man who works in Center City said that he had several coworkers on the fence, and many of them had decided to vote for Obama after hearing his speech on race relations.

I met one woman who was undecided and said that she really wished she could vote for both of them. She said that the fact that she was even undecided now was a tribute to Obama, because she had initially been firmly in Hillary’s camp.

The campaign office said they had already identified 63% of the supporters they needed to identify in Lower and Upper Merion, and that they had gotten more volunteers today than they had expected, so they anticipated getting further ahead of the goal after today’s results were tallied.

I’m trying not to get my hopes up by even entertaining the notion that Obama could win Pennsylvania, but let’s just say today’s results are encouraging. It definitely feels like something has shifted over the past two weeks.

I was registered in New Jersey in 2004, and Kerry had the nomination sewn up long before I got to vote. Only a handful of states really got a genuine choice in the primaries in 2004, and nobody complained about it.

I had volunteered for Dean for almost a year, getting involved in March of 2003, before most people had even heard of him. I spent that summer working to build name recognition in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and I spent winter break my freshman year of college interning in freezing cold New Hampshire for his campaign. I put my heart and soul into the Dean campaign, but I never got to vote for him. And I don’t remember the Clintons or any other big name Democrats speaking up for my right to vote in a competitive primary.

I’m not calling for Clinton to drop out. I never have, and I have called out other Obama supporters who have done so. But if she was really so committed to letting everyone vote before a nominee was decided, why did she not speak up in 2004 when the media basically anointed Kerry as the nominee after Iowa? Why did she not speak up for my right as a late state voter (New Jersey was not until June back then) to vote for the candidate I believed in and have my vote matter?

I don’t dispute Clinton’s right to stay in this, and I think those who call for her to drop out are counterproductive. But is there anyone who has any doubt that if the tables were turned, Clinton would not be calling for Obama to drop out or treating him as completely insignificant? Is there any doubt that if the tables were turned, Obama would be a joke by now for staying in? Would Clinton really be championing the cause of letting everyone vote if the tables were turned?

I’m not planning to use my blog to regularly hit my readers up for money, but I am pretty excited right now! I cross-posted the previous post at DailyKos and it made the rec list, and I got over $4,000 in contributions to my personal fundraising page. Who wants to help me make it $5,000 before midnight?

Call me crazy, but I believe it’s quite possible. Obama hinted last week that his fundraising has slowed down from its record pace in February, and we know that Clinton raised at least $5 million right after March 4.

In addition to the online surge following March 4, it’s likely that a lot of big donors who had been holding back to see if she was still viable donated to Clinton. And she had the Elton John concert the other night that probably brought in a lot of money.

Obama probably raised some money after March 4 as well, as it’s likely that some of his donors were holding back to see if the primary race would continue before donating. But given that his campaign did not put out their own number when Clinton’s team announced how much she had raised, it’s unlikely that he raised as much.

Those who know political fundraising know that it is event-driven, so let’s go through the rest of the month and evaluate how events may have impacted each campaign’s fundraising:

1. Samantha Powers calling Hillary a monster.The Clinton campaign used this in a fundraising appeal, and probably raised some money from it.
2. Wyoming and Mississippi. Obama won big in both, but since his victories were expected and the media treated them as no surprise, he probably did not get a huge boost in fundraising from them.
3. The Geraldine Ferraro controversy. Clinton took a bit of a hit in the polls during this time, and some indignant Obama supporters may have been prompted to give. But it also might have inspired donations from some Clinton supporters who thought Ferraro was being treated unfairly or that Clinton was being unfairly blamed for it. All in all probably not a big net gain for either candidate.
4. The Wright controversy. This probably gave Obama a boost from supporters who thought he was unfairly under attack, but it may have also inspired Clinton donors who became more optimistic that she might still have a path to the nomination. It’s also possible that Obama’s fundraising slowed during this time as people started to have second thoughts.
5. Obama’s speech on race. No doubt in my mind that a lot of people gave after seeing the speech. I know I did!
6. Snipergate. Like the Ferraro thing, could have gone either way. Obama bouncing back in the polls is always a good thing, but once again, Clinton supporters might have rallied to her by donating.
7. Leahy’s call for Clinton to drop out. The Clinton campaign smartly used this in a fundraising e-mail, and I have no doubt that the call for her to drop out caused some of her supporters to donate to help keep her alive.
8. Reports about Clinton’s campaign being broke (based on February reports) and not paying vendors. Again, this may have underscored the importance of donating for Clinton’s supporters in order to keep her alive.
9. The contest to win dinner with Barack. This probably got a lot of donations (my grandparents donated for the first time hoping for a chance to win), but since many of the donations were from people who don’t usually donate or people who had already donated but wanted to give a little more in order to win dinner, it’s likely that most of these donations were fairly small.

Of course, there were other events that may have driven fundraising, like endorsements. But looking at the events of the month and the fact that Clinton raised so much money right after March 4, I think it’s not entirely impossible that she could end up outraising Obama this month.

If that were to happen, the media would consider it a big upset, and it might change the narrative of the race. It might also have the effect of slowing superdelegate endorsements for Obama, as it would be another sign that they should not count Clinton out just yet.

If you are an Obama supporter who does not want to see that happen, I strongly suggest that you try to give today if you have not already given this month (or even if you have). Feel free to use my donation page, or if you have not yet entered the contest to win dinner, do so here.

Senator Leahy (D-VT) supports Obama, but he may have done more harm than good on Friday when he called for Senator Clinton to drop out of the race.

One theme throughout this primary season has been that Clinton seems to do best when her back is up against the wall. When everyone predicted her downfall in the run-up to New Hampshire, she pulled off a surprise win. When her back was up against the wall in Ohio and Texas, she managed to survive.

This has not been true for other candidates this year or in the past, when losing tends to lead to more losing because of the media casting them as losers. Witness Dean in 2004 and Guiliani this year.

So why does Clinton tend to do best when her campaign is on the ropes? Some people have speculated that there is a gender factor, and I think that’s dead on. I am a passionate Obama supporter, but as a woman, I feel twinges of guilt at times about the fact that I am not supporting the first woman with a real shot at the presidency. As crazy as this probably sounds, if Clinton does eventually drop out I have a feeling I will be sad.

If even I, as a hardcore Obama supporter, feel that way, then I would be that some women who maybe leaned toward Obama or were on the fence might have ended up voting for Clinton when it looked like losing would end her campaign. This might help to explain her stronger than expected showing in New Hampshire and in Ohio, two times when it looked like a loss might mean the end for her. If I had voted in one of those states, I probably would have still voted for Obama, but I might have paused for a moment and felt a little guilty about it.

If Obama starts closing the gap in Pennsylvania in the polls, we might see a similar effect, where women who had been on the fence or leaned toward Obama end up breaking for Hillary, and Leahy’s comment could only make it worse. The Clintons are smart to use Leahy’s comment to their advantage on the campaign trail, and Obama was right to distance himself from it and say that Clinton should stay in as long as she wants. Still, I am afraid the damage may have been done.

I’m a little shaken up from a conversation I just had. My roommate’s parents are staying with us for the weekend, and when I got home they were watching the news. They were very nice to me at first, but when I mentioned that I might be going to Philly for the weekend to volunteer for Obama her mother’s tone seemed to change. Later, when a story about the election came on the news I asked if they had a preferred candidate, her mother said huffily “not Obama.”

So I said okay and dropped it, but then she said “the last thing we need is Arabs infiltrating our government.” I said that Obama is not Arab and she just scoffed and said huffily “I’m not getting into this with you.”

What’s really disturbing about this is that my roommate’s parents are not uneducated people. They are upper-middle class Jews from Cleveland with college degrees. I would guess that they have been recipients of a smear e-mail similar to one that my cousin’s girlfriend’s mother (who also lives in Cleveland) received, but it’s disturbing that educated people believe this crap.

I had heard about smear e-mails that had been sent to Jewish voters claiming Obama is a Muslim before, and now I wonder if that is why I got so many dirty looks from Jews in Montgomery County, PA last weekend. We really need to do something to combat this, though I am not sure what.

I’m really shaken up right now…I feel uncomfortable in my own apartment. I went back out to the living room a little later to get some water and her mother was pleasant, but I don’t want to make small talk with someone who is so bigoted towards Arabs and so ignorant and judgmental. Maybe I’ll drive up to Philly and stay at my parents’ empty house tomorrow night and do some canvassing…I have a friend’s birthday tomorrow night but maybe she’ll understand.

I posted my account of last weekend at Daily Kos last week, but I thought it made sense to post it here too, now that a few people are actually reading this blog.

I grew up in the Philadelphia area and went to high school in Montgomery County, right outside the city. So I came up for the weekend to help the Obama campaign register new voters and help people who wanted to switch their registration to Democrat to vote in the primary.

Some background on the area: Montgomery County is an upper-income area with a large Jewish population, particularly in the part closest to Philadelphia. It used to be a Republican stronghold, and registered Republicans still outnumber registered Democrats, in part because most of the local government is still Republican. But Kerry carried the county by 12 points in 2004, and there are a lot of people who have voted Democrat for at least the last 2 presidential elections and voted for Rendell for governor both times but never changed their registration. So in addition to signing up new voters (most people in areas like this are already registered), one of the main objectives was to get these people to register as Democrats so they could vote for Obama in the primary.

Bottom line impression: the Wright “scandal” (I prefer to call it a character assassination) has definitely hurt Obama, but it hasn’t killed him. He still has plenty of support, but it didn’t feel like as much of an Obama stronghold as I thought it would be.

They sent me to a supermarket in Narberth, PA to do registration. This is a heavily Jewish area, and they picked that location for me because it has a large kosher section and I told them that I had gone to a Jewish high school and knew how to talk to people who were worried about whether Obama would be pro-Israel enough as president.

At first it was pretty discouraging. Several people gave me dirty looks and said things like “don’t even talk to me.” One man essentially called me a traitor to my religion and said that Obama was “no friend to us”, and one woman said that she was a Democrat but might vote for McCain if Obama was the nominee, because she was disturbed about the Wright sermons and what Michelle Obama had said about being proud of her country.

Several people expressed doubts about Obama that I could kind of tell were related to Israel, even if they did not say it until I asked. I gave out sheets the Obama campaign had prepared detailing his positions on Israel, and told them that I was Jewish myself and would never support someone I did not trust to be supportive of Israel, but I trust Barack Obama. Hopefully that, plus the information I gave out will help to reassure people. I should have also pointed out that Jewish leaders in Chicago are very comfortable with Obama, and he had a lot of Jewish support when he ran for the Senate four years ago.

At first, the only people who seemed to be for Obama were the people who worked in the store, most of whom were African American. I got a few of them registered for the first time, so that felt good. But just about every white person I met at first seemed to have a negative impression of him, and I was pretty demoralized.

I went back to the headquarters after I ran out of registration forms. I called my mom and said “I think it’s over. His support among rich white liberals seems to have collapsed, and they’re one of his core constituencies. If he can’t win white voters here he can’t win them anywhere in the state.” But she yelled at me for being defeatist, and I forced myself to go back out there and do some more registration. Somehow, the second round was a lot more encouraging. I met a lot more people (mostly white) who supported Obama or were leaning that way.

This is a highly educated, upper-income area, so most people were already registered, but several people asked to take forms home for their kids who had recently turned 18 or were in college and on spring break. I also got a lot of people who wanted to change their registration from Republican or independent to Democrat. I am not sure if they were all planning to vote for Obama, but I was decked out in Obama gear, so I would think most people who agreed to fill out forms for me were Obama supporters if they trusted me to handle their registration form (except for one woman who admitted she planned to vote for Clinton).

I met several enthusiastic supporters, including a couple who were already volunteering and a couple more who were willing to. Several people asked for yard signs or bumper stickers, which I asked them to sign up for, though I found out later the campaign did not have any. It seemed like many of the people who were liberal Democrats supported Obama, while more of the Clinton supporters were the type who called themselves Democrats but would consider voting for McCain if Obama were not the nominee.

A lot of people who were already registered thanked me for what I was doing and said it was a good public service. I don’t know if all of them were for Obama, but I would imagine some of them were.

Among the more interesting encounters I had were:

• A mother who was there with her college-age son, who I think was on spring break from Temple. He said that he had seen people on campus from the Obama campaign doing voter registration. I asked if he was going to vote for Obama, and he said he wasn’t sure, but his mother said sharply “no, you’re not!” Hopefully he’ll make up his own mind. Later on I wished I had said “hey, don’t tell your Mama you’re for Obama.”
• The Joe-six-pack type who had been for Richardson then Edwards, but is now voting for Obama, mainly because he dislikes Hillary. He was very pleased about the Richardson endorsement.
• A woman who did not want to change her registration because it meant having to choose between Clinton and Obama, when she really liked them both. I told her I like Hillary but I work in politics and I know enough about politicians behind the scenes to know that Obama is really something special. I encouraged her to take a form, and pointed out that if she registered as a Democrat, she’d have 30 days to make up her mind, and if she still could not decide she did not have to vote in the primary, but that way she’d have the option. She took a form and hopefully she will fill it out and send it.
• The woman who has been a staunch Republican all her life and hates Hillary, though she would like to see a woman president. She said she would have more respect for Hillary if she had left Bill after he cheated on her. She won’t vote for Obama but she really likes him. She told me a story about a time when she got to go to the governor’s mansion in Arkansas when Bill was governor. (she had been involved with this group for women in construction and got to go to some political events as a result). She said that when she was there, they overheard Hillary screaming at Bill with all kinds of expletives, complaining that he had been away for three days and accusing him of screwing around. She could have been making this up, but it did not sound terribly implausible.

All in all, I would say Obama definitely had a substantial and diverse base of support in the area, but perhaps not as high as it should be in an upper-income suburb. Although when I thought about the fact that not everyone there was a Democrat to begin with (45% of the county voted for Bush, though I would guess that number was lower in the particular area I was in), it did not seem so bad.

At the end of the day, I was moderately encouraged. Obama has definitely lost some support in the last week, but his support among white voters has not collapsed as I had initially feared.

Here are a few other accounts from volunteers in Pennsylvania:
Young Philly Politics
Green Mountain Daily’s account of how things look in Scranton
Pennsylvanians for Change reports seeing lots of signs in Berks County

The biggest surprise in the new poll released by NBC tonight is the drop in Clinton’s favorability ratings, while Obama’s numbers have remained surprisingly steady despite the “controversy” over his pastor’s remarks. But a closer look at the numbers shows a few other encouraging signs:

While his support among white voters has slipped a few points since the last poll, he actually does better among whites against McCain than Clinton, losing the white vote 49-38, as opposed to 53-38 for Clinton. The 11-point deficit among whites might look discouraging, but it’s important to keep in mind that Kerry lost the white vote by 17 points in 2004. Obama is only 3 points below Kerry’s percentage of the white vote (41%), while McCain is 9 points behind Bush’s 58% (the rest are undecided).

Most analysts expect Obama to get a smaller share of the white vote than previous Democratic nominees, but predict that he can offset it with higher turnout among African Americans. But according to this poll, if the undecided white voters break evenly for Obama and McCain, Obama will actually get a greater share of the white vote than Kerry got, which would pretty much guarantee him a win, barring a huge defection among Latinos. Kerry only won the Latino vote by 9 points in 2004, and state polls so far have shown Obama doing better than that, though Clinton does do better against McCain among Latinos than Obama does.

Of course, this is only one poll, and the election is still 7 months away. A lot could change between now and November, and we should be cautious about reading too much into this one poll.

I started out really excited about Barack Obama running for president, but I was hesitant to get on board early on. In 2004, I had been a hardcore Deaniac for months before anyone had even heard of him. I watched him make an improbable rise to frontrunner status only to see it all come crashing down after Iowa. When Obama began running for president, I held back and did not get my hopes up because I was afraid I’d get my heart broken again.

It wasn’t until after Iowa that I was ready to even start rooting for Obama, and it was after South Carolina that I decided I just couldn’t stay on the sidelines anymore. But since I have gotten involved, I have had this nagging feeling that something would happen to upset the apple cart and make everything fall apart just like what happened with Dean four years ago. And in the past few weeks, particularly since last Friday, I’ve been afraid that that moment has come. My respect for Obama did not waiver, but I had my doubts about whether or not he was ready and whether America was ready for him.

After hearing his speech yesterday, I knew he was not only ready to be president but ready to be a great president. As John Robin Baitz wrote yesterday, “This, then, is what it means to be presidential. To be moral. To have a real center. To speak honestly, from the heart, for the benefit of all.”

I may be young, but I have enough knowledge of history and enough experience in Washington to know that it is rare that a politician as honest and authentic as Barack Obama comes along. For years, I have watched “West Wing” and hoped that one day we’d have a candidate and maybe a president who is as genuine and moral as Josiah Bartlett (or either of the candidates vying to succeed him in later seasons), a president who was willing to put principle above politics at least once in a while. I thought Barack Obama might be that leader, but after yesterday I am convinced.

Obama proved yesterday that he has the vision, courage, and integrity to be president. The question now is, is America ready? Are we enlightened enough to put aside racial tensions in order to elect an extraordinary leader? Nobody knows, and the recent polling data as well as the outrage to what feels to me like a manufactured controversy over Obama’s pastor are not encouraging. But for anyone who loves this country but recognizes that we have yet to live up to our full potential, the vision Obama eloquently laid out for America yesterday is a vision worth fighting for.

Much has already been said about Geraldine Ferraro’s controversial comments implying that Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he were white (or a woman). The purpose of this post is not to attack or defend her comments, but to test her hypothesis that Clinton has been hampered by her gender while Obama has been helped by his race by looking at the exit poll numbers for people who said that a candidate’s race or gender had any influence on their vote.

This analysis is limited to voting behavior, and does not assess the impact of race or gender on other aspects of the primary process, such as media coverage, fundraising, or endorsements.

The table below compares Obama’s performance among those who said race was the most important or one of several factors in their vote to those who said it made no difference.

As you can see, Obama did 1 point worse on average* among those who said race was a factor than he did among those who said it made no difference. In some states, he did as much as 30% worse among those who said race mattered than among those who said it didn’t. In the primaries so far (excluding those for which exit polls were not conducted or did not ask about the importance of gender), Obama did better among those who said they cared about race than those who said they didn’t in 10 states, and worse in 13. People who said race was a factor made up about 19 of the primary voters on average.*

Now let’s see how Clinton did among those who said gender was a factor (about 21% of primary voters on average*):

Clinton did an average of 32 points* better among those who said gender was a factor in their decision than among those who said it wasn’t.

Being a woman hurt Clinton in Alabama and Mississippi, but she did better everywhere else among people who said gender was a factor than people who said it wasn’t. In some states, the people who said gender was important made the difference. For example, look at California. Among people who said gender had no impact on their vote, Clinton and Obama were tied, 47-47. Clinton won the people who said gender was a factor by more than 3-1. Combine that with the fact that Obama did 14 points worse among people who said race was a factor than among those who said it wasn’t, and it is likely that if nobody cared about race or gender, Obama would have won California.

Of course, this just examines the self-reported impact of race and gender in people’s votes, and probably understates the actual impact. People of all races and genders might be reluctant to admit they are voting for or against a candidate because of the candidate’s race or gender. But if people who admit that race or gender played a role in their decision are any guide, Clinton is benefitting a lot more at the ballot box from being a woman than Obama is benefitting from being black.

* Averages are computed with each state getting equal weight, regardless of population. This analysis is not weighted for turnout or population and makes no attempt to quantify the impact of race and gender on the overall popular vote.