I've been doing this newsletter for over 5 years.  It started with DC for Clark and only recently has it become the "DC for Obama" newsletter although I've been on the local Obama grassroots team for a long time.  After the election it will go back to being about progressive events in the DC region.  Anyway, I had stopped posting it to Daily Kos but several people at Netroots Nation asked me to post it here.  

21 years age, after having dropped out of law school & gone into debt to be a full time organizer/staffer for him three years before, my candidate Gary Hart was exposed by the Miami Herald & National Enquirer, as a guy who had cheated on his wife & the rest of us.  About a decade later, as a country, we went though the all too fresh partisan impeachment over an episode of sex & lies.  I've seen & lived this story before and my heart really does go out to the hundreds of people who worked so hard for the Edwards Campaign.  My advice is to grieve, cry, live, learn & grow.  Your campaign was not really about John Edwards just as my campaign way back in the 1980's was not about Gary Hart.  

I was genuinely saddened today to hear of the passing of Rep. John Seiberling of Ohio.

This Bud's for Big Oil, War Profiteers & Europeans, Middle-Class Americans Lose Again

The takeover of American icon Anheuser-Busch by Belgan Brewer InBev, a company that barely anyone had heard of 5 years ago, is another example of how middle-class Americans are paying dearly for the failed war in Iraq.  Simply put, the result of the war is sky high oil prices, a major inflationary pressure, and the worst economy in a generation.  In the process the dollar has dropped like a stone.  Imagine what the real estate crash has done to home values in a world economic context -- given dropping property values and the dropping dollar, many homes have declined in the neighborhood of 50%, ouch!  Call me a whiner but it's the truth.

I'm announcing my candidacy, right here, right now on Big Orange, the site that has done more to change politics & change America than any other.  Anyway, it is an elected (but unpaid) position but this is true grass roots politics.  I'm running to be the Ward 6 Committeeman for the Democratic State Committee on the DC for Obama endorsed Obama4UnityBeats McCain slate in the District of Columbia, http://www.obama4unitybeatsmccain.co...  The petitions will be filed on Wednesday.  The election is on September 9 as part of the DC Democratic Primary.  For some reason we are doing the primary for local offices seperately from the presidential primary, held on Feb. 12.  The DC Democratic State Committee is the governing body of the local Democratic Party.

In the 1800s immigrants from Germany and other mid-European countries flocked to cities like Cincinnatti, Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Louis.  They built many things including built great breweries, like Blatz, Miller, Schlitz, Pabst, Falstaff and a thousand lesser ones.  The greatest brewery of them all was Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.  I went to high school just 10 blocks from the 100 square block Busch brewery complex in St. Louis.  If the breeze was just right, the smell of hops would blow in and engulf our classroom.  It was a reassuring smell.  It meant union jobs at solid middle class wages with great benefits that had been won thanks to strong unions and a paternalistic management.  Anheuser-Busch, then & now, was the cornerstone of St. Louis.  

First, my main source for this is a great piece by Rhodes Cook on Larry Sabito's Crystal Ball '08 http://www.centerforpolitics.org/...

Much as been made about the example of 1960 when, for better or worse, John Kennedy selected a very different politician, Lyndon Johnson, as his Vice Presidential running mate.  It's been awhile since I've read much 1960 history and it was a very different process 48 years ago but most would agree that LBJ was the runner-up to JFK.  John Edwards was clearly the runner-up to John Kerry in 2004.

Don't blame or credit me, but recently selected add-on DC Clinton Delegate Councilman Jack Evans is switching to Barack Obama.  Here is my source, (also confirmed by another source)http://washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/05/17/jack-throws-support-to-obama/

Richmond, Virginia Mayor Douglas Wilder has announced that he will not run for re-election as Mayor.  For those of you who did not pay much attention in history class, Wilder was the first African-American Governor ever elected in the USA since reconstruction.  Wilder was Governor of the "Old Dominion" from 1990-94 after winning a razor-close election.  He had been ahead, comfortably, in most polls, but won by less than a point on Election Day.  Wilder's career is amazing and he personified much of the change in the country.  Always quirky, never boring, Wilder is a giant of Virginia politics.  He ran for President, briefly, in 1992.

Just in case there were any lingering doubts below is the official statement from Superdelegate Anita Bonds endorsing Barack Obama today.  

To the surprise of not a whole lot of people DC Democratic Party Chair Anita Bonds announced that she will support Barack Obama.  Bonds is a SuperDelegate.

Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. was narrowly elected as an unpledged "add-on" delegate by the DC Democratic State Committee on April 3.  Thomas had been an early Clinton supporter.  Since then, Thomas has given mixed signals, I'll spare you the details except for one, Barack Obama got over 83% of the vote in Thomas'es Ward 5 in Northeast Washington. Here is a link from WashingtonPost.com
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/...

The Washington, DC Examiner reports that recently selected unpledged add on delegate Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. has switched from support of Clinton to "undecided."  The link to the story is: http://www.examiner.com/...

It seems like there is one thing that Obama & Clinton supporters agree on -- both groups detested Mark Penn.  Look over at MyDD, the Clintonistas are practically singing "Happy Days are Here Again" or even "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."

Have any of you Obamaniacs or Clintonistas read your state Democratic Party delegate selection plan? Including the footnotes & rules citations?  Doing so might make a difference and be a better use of your time than sitting around getting steamed about the latest from Ann Coulter or O'Liely.  We read the plan, we checked the math and, surprise! Our grasp of the process was better than the local Democratic Party establishment.

Why is Harold Ickes a superdelegate from Washington, DC?

I was just channel surfing and stopped on Fox because I saw O'Reilly bashing Daily Kos and last years Yearly Kos Convention.  His guest was a Clinton Campaign "Youth Advisor" who I have never heard of.  I did not catch her name.  Anyway, O'Reilly's point was that he had advised Hillary not to attend last year's convention in Chicago because the site os "full of hate" -- now he was saying "I told you so" and approvingly cited the notion that Clinton bloggers are now boycotting Daily Kos.