Do Obama Supporters Realize What They're in for on Super Tuesday?

Mayhill Fowler
Obama Camp Makes Gains In California Ground War
Posted January 29, 2008 | 12:48 AM (EST)

With a southern wind at his back, Barack Obama is surging in California. Nine days from the primary, Obama California is waging day-to-day skirmishes to take the lead from Hillary Clinton, who has so far prevailed in this state but is slowly losing ground. Over the weekend and through Monday, the Obama grassroots has been on the offensive. All day Saturday, long before the polls closed in South Carolina, Obama California held a statewide phone bank in thirteen field offices with a goal of 100,000 calls and a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Not only did volunteers make 220,000 calls but also they targeted the "decline to state" voters, who in California can participate in the Democratic Primary.

By Sunday, the Obama Campaign was holding a conference call with the press to announce the California Truth Squad, which will be quick "to respond to misleading negative attacks from the Clinton Campaign." Unless the Clintons harbor a political death wish, likely they have already set a new course, with a new tone--same as they did after Iowa. Therefore, the California Truth Squad may never muster; nevertheless, the nine pols, led by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, are ready--just as the Obama Campaign, stung, and perceiving, rightly or wrongly, that they were the object of dirty tricks at the Nevada caucuses, sent out the call nationwide for lawyers to come to South Carolina to monitor the voting. On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed Obama and thereby brought to twenty the senator's endorsements from California newspapers (to date, Clinton and Edwards have one endorsement each). Yet more evidence that the Clintons' and their surrogates' misstatements and insinuations about Obama have backfired is this reasoning from the Chronicle editorial board in making their decision: "Especially in recent days, her campaign has shown the sharp elbows that evoke the ugly underside of the Clinton years. . . ."
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