itsmeeeeeee

THE HEADLINE AT HUFFINGTON POST:

DNC Chairman Under Clinton Switches To Obama ... Says Clintons Will Attack Him Like Right-Wingers ... Today's Superdelegate Tally: Obama 5, Clinton 1

Ben Smith's Blog - Politico.com

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itsmeeeeeee

Obama gets endorsement of Texas DNC member John Patrick, citing his record on trade, fighting for working class.

The Page - by Mark Halperin - TIME

holy shit!!!!! put on your hip boots, gang!
can you say "backlash!"?

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Veronica

Clinton is suppose to pick up 3 today from NY, let's see if it happens.

Let the tsunami of Supers come Obama's way!!!!!

itsmeeeeeee

well, now i see that hillary's picked up 4 today to obama's 5 so far!

wow, with andrew going public about the intimidation tactics being applied on the down low, and clinton's supporters swamping phone lines of any super who endorses obama, this must be REALLY coming to a head - and obviousy it's all out war!

i'm glad he spoke out.

it's just like the clintons to threaten the supers privately, and it's been well publicized that they were pressuring all the uncommitted supers NOT to endorse anyone - they admitted it in several interviews a few weeks ago. we all witnessed what they did publicly to bill richardson, so you can just imagine what's going on behind the scene to keep the supers from endorsing today, and to get people to endorse her to offset the backlash!

it would be a very interesting day to be a fly on the wall in these congressional offices...

more from andrew:

"I had hoped, like Nancy Pelosi, that this [primary] decision could be have been made after the primaries were over," he told reporters during a conference call. "But I have grown concerned that the actions of one candidate, my former candidate, are going to hurt us in the fall... And so now I am calling upon my fellow superdelegates, however they make their decision, whatever they make it by, to do it now."

"We have two great candidates and public servants, but they have run their campaigns in different ways."

Specifically, Andrews pointed to Clinton's proposal for a gas-tax holiday -- an idea derided by economists but, likely, welcomed by voters -- as evidence that her candidacy promised not principle, but merely the opportunity to "play the political theater better than anyone else."

"The idea that we would step back from the real energy policy and environmental policy...for half a tank of gas," he said. "Is something that really was the straw that broke the camels back for me."

There is an interesting and long-standing electoral undercurrent to Andrew's endorsement that stems back to the very first primaries. Indeed, his endorsement of Obama is, in many ways, a reflection of and reaction to comments made way back in the lead up to New Hampshire by Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal.

The choice in the Democratic primary, Blumenthal told the New Yorker, was not "a question of transcending partisanship," which Obama has pledged, "it's a question of fulfilling it."

On Thursday, Andrews - who said he expects repercussions and political attacks for his switch - railed against the Blumenthal notion.

"Along comes a principled elected official in Barrack Obama and he says no, you don't have to do it, that is crazy," he said, "Lets talk about some real solutions to problems... lets not talk about giving someone back a half a tank of gas, lets talk about a real environmental and energy policy."

he's also blogged on huffington post, read it here:
Joseph J. Andrew: On My Switch From Clinton to Obama - Politics on The Huffington Post

it's very long! but here's an excerpt about the retaliation efforts the clinton's apply:

"My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign. If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a "Judas" for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.

When they use the same attacks made on me when I was defending them, they prove the callow hypocrisy of the old politics first perfected by Republicans. I am an expert on this because these were the exact tools that I mastered as a campaign volunteer, a campaign manager, a State Party Chair and the National Chair of our Party. I learned the lessons of the tough, right-wing Republicans all too well. I can speak with authority on how to spar with everyone from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove. I understand that, while wrong and pernicious, shallow victory can be achieved through division by semantics and obfuscation. Like many, I succumbed to the addiction of old politics because they are so easy.

Innuendo is easy. The truth is hard.

Sound bites are easy. Solutions are hard.

Spin is simple and easy. Struggling with facts is complicated and hard.

I have learned the hard way that you can love the candidate and hate the campaign. My stomach churns when I think how my old friends in the Clinton campaign will just pick up the old silly Republican play book and call in the same old artificial attacks and bombardments we have all heard before.

Yet, despite the simple and overwhelming pressure to do anything and everything to win, Barack Obama has risen above it all and demanded a new brand of politics. People flock to Senator Obama because they are rejecting the hyperbole of the old politics. The past eight years of George Bush have witnessed a retreat from substance, science, and reason in favor spin, cronyism and ideology. Barack Obama has dared not only to criticize it, as all Democrats do, but to actually reject playing the same old game. And in doing so, he has shown us a new path to victory."

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