I have a ward meeting tonight at 7:30, where for the first time we will discuss the Presidential campaign. Living in Philadelphia, most of us are shocked that we might actually have to make an endorsement in a still-contested primary. I've been tasked with presenting the national and general election picture to the rest of the committeepeople on the ward committee (aka, the precinct captains).
Last year, after the mayoral election, I heard a joke from one of the ward leaders that the local media just waits to see who the 27th ward endorses before making their endorsements. As I look over our history of endorsements over the past two years, it is true that local media has pretty much endorsed exactly the same candidates we have, many of them huge underdogs, about a week or two after we endorsed them. This includes current Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who was endorsed by every single local publication, but who was first endorsed by the 27th ward. We were, in fact, the first ward to endorse Nutter.
I plan to make a case at the meeting that our ward is overwhelmingly represented by Barack Obama's coalition. About one-third of our committee people (precinct captains) are students at the University of Pennsylvania, and Obama not only was recently a professor but he has huge youth support. The other two-thirds of the committee tend to be older local residents, with roughly an even split among African-Americans and whites. Again, our diverse community is largely represented by the Obama coalition and by Obama himself. Then again, almost all of the non-student committee persons are women over the age of 35. You know, the "women in sensible shoes" that the New Republic talked about endorsing Ned Lamont two years ago.
It will be interesting to see how this meeting goes. It is one of the first events in the Pennsylvania primary. I feel torn in that I would love for the Pennsylvania primary to be the most meaningful contest since New Hampshire, but also that I'm starting to get antsy to just tackle John McCain head-on and be done with our nomination campaign on March 4th. What do you think? Do you want to see the campaign continue on to Pennsylvania, or do you want to see it end on March 4th? Even if you are an Obama supporters, there is a strong case to be made that it would help out quite a bit to build a powerful local organization, and the five weeks of extra campaigning here might take Pennsylvania out of the swing state column once and for all. The long-term benefit for Democrats would far outweigh any inconvenience of an extra six weeks of the nomination campaign.
Also, if there is any advice you have for me on what to say at tonight's meeting, I would love to hear it. Given our strange local influence, this strikes me as the most important endorsement over which I will have a large say during the entire nomination campaign.
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